How To Apply a Sales Discount In Quickbooks
It’s not uncommon for small businesses and retailers to offer sales discounts to their customers. While you can always reduce the initial invoice to reflect a promotional sale, this doesn’t have the same impact as seeing the cost-difference. For instance, sending a customer an invoice for “$200.00 $129.99″ looks better than an invoice for “$129.99.” By including the original and the sale price in your invoice, customers will feel like they receiving a better deal.
To apply a sales discount on an invoice or order form, you must first create a special discount item and then enter it on the form. Click on the Lists menu followed by Item List. Next, click Item and then New. You should then see several drop-down boxes. Click the one labeled Item and choose a name for your discounted item, such as Product A Discounted at 30%.
Now, you will need to enter a description for your discounted item. Think long and hard about your description, because this will be displayed on your sales form.
In the amount field, enter the amount of the discount. This can be done either with a percentage or dollar figure. If you want to offer customers a 30% discount, for example, enter “30%” in the discount amount field. On the other hand, if you want to offer customers a flat discount of $50, enter $50. You can also choose to leave this field blank if you plan to enter custom discounts on the actual sales form. Leaving the field blank will allow you to enter different discount amounts in different sales forms.
After choosing the amount of your discount (or leaving the field blank), click the drop-down box labeled Account and select the income amount for tracking customer discounts. Last but not least, click the drop-down box for Tax Code to choose a taxable code for your discount. This basically sets up the sales form to apply sales tax before the discount is applied — a measure required by some states.
Hopefully, this guide will give you a better understanding of how to apply a discount to one or more sales forms in Quickbooks. By using sales and promotions, you’ll retain more of your existing customers/clients while subsequently attracting new ones. It’s an otherwise simple tactic that can make a world of difference in your normal business operations.
To view a video tutorial for the process above please visit the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lzWp6KeJpQ