QuickBooks Online Sales Tax Expert Course

This QuickBooks Online Sales tax training Tutorial will give you an overview of what Sales Tax really is. The concepts and ideas behind the laws of: charging, collecting and paying sales tax will be explained in this first video. Once you know how sales tax works in a general sense, then you can apply the ideas to setting up and using the QuickBooks online sales tax center for managing what you owe to Sales tax agencies for each sales tax period that you must collect and pay for.

This QuickBooks Online Sales Tax will help you obtain a separate QuickBooks Online Account in order to follow step-by-step with this special YouTube QuickBooks Online Sales Tax Playlist Course. I do try to get the free 30-day trial version here in this video. I also show you how to navigate the Q.B.O. interface and I give you a list of: customers, vendors and items to input in your account that you will use for this course. Do not use your actual company QuickBooks Online Account. Use the separate account demonstrated here. You may only be entitled to the free trial if you are in The United States. You must use the “plus” version of the QuickBooks online for all the sales tax features we will study. You simply input the set up lists and then you are ready to go.

This QuickBooks Online Sales Tax training tutorial will show you how to activate sales tax in QuickBooks Online. After using the account settings window (or company settings window) to acxtivate or “switch on” the sales tax feature, you must input the address of the business primary location. This is what the sales tax rates will be based on. After activating sales tax, you will see that there are fields added to invoices and receipts for sales tax. You will see that you are able to activate the sales tax center. The first time you open the sales tax center, you will confirm that your address that you put in the company settings window is the address that your state sales tax is based on. Then you will see the tax rules for your location regarding the rate you must charge and collect sales tax with It will show you how often you must send in the sales tax owed and the general rules of your specific sales tax. It knows this by the location of your company. You will then see the first invoice created with sales tax and see how the information about the sales tax you changes will show up in the sales tax center. It will accumulate by sales tax period and the sales tax center shows all taxes owed by sales tax period. It wills how the status of each tax period that you collected for as “owed” or “due” or “past due” until it’s paid for that period. The sales tax reports show the same thing as the sales tax center and it will be “in synch” with the accounts in the trial balance.

This QuickBooks Online Sales Tax training tutorial will show you how to pay sales tax and record sales tax payments in QuickBooks online. You must us ethe sales tax center and find the tax and the tax period that you are paying the sales tax for. QuickBooks Online Assumes that you are sending in the tax payments as soon as you record the payment into QuickBooks Online. The form or “sales tax return” will automatically filed with your tax agency and sent directly from QuickBooks online if you are paying the default sales tax that was set up as the main company address in the account settings. The sales tax center will tell you if the sales tax payment is due or overdue. Once you record a specific sales tax payment for a specific sales tax period, it will be marked as “paid” in the sales tax center. The account in the chart of accounts called “sales tax payable”, which represents what you owe to all tax agency in totals, will decrease by the amount of the sales tax payment. The amount you owe to that tax agency will also decrease in the balance of the sales tax center. Then your sales tax liabilities will be up to date and it will show that in the sales tax liability report as well as the trial balance.

This QuickBooks Online Sales Tax training tutorial will show you how to make specific customers exempt from sales tax and make any item on your list of products and services as “non-taxable”. For services and products, you should open the list and edit the item so that you can choose the sales tax category as “non-taxable”. To make a customer exempt from sales tax, open the customer page and edit the customer so that you can click the tab “tax info”. Then you can use it to give a reason why the customer is exempt from sales tax. At the moment you make an invoice, you can edit the invoices sales tax so that each line of the invoice can have an item that is taxable or not taxable in that specific invoice. If you choose the exempt customers then the entire invoice or sales receipt will have no sales tax.

This QuickBooks Online Sales Tax training tutorial will show you how to adjust the sales tax balance of sales tax payable and the amount owed to any specific tax agency. Sometimes we overpay sales tax or receive a sales tax refund or sales tax credit. You do this at the moment that you pay the sales tax. You must choose a sales tax adjustment account to input the amount of adjustment. The adjustment account reflects the reason for the sales tax increase or decrease. For example, if you receive a late fee that adds to the sales tax balance due, then the adjustment account would be the expense called “late fee foe sales tax payments”. This adjustment will update the balance due for the specific sales tax period that you are adjusting.

This QuickBooks Online Sales Tax training tutorial will show you how to add a tax agency to the Sales Tax Center. This is an organization or department of government that you must pay the sales tax to. It’s usually a local government and most local counties that require you charge and collect sales tax are listed on the list of tax agencies in QuickBooks online. You must select an agency and a rate as well as determine the tax period and due dates of the tax period that you had sales for in that state or county. So, if you suddenly start selling in a new state or county in the United States, you need to add a new tax and a new agency to the QuickBooks online list of tax agencies in the U.S. In QuickBooks Online, each different sales tax and each agency owed, will have their own account in the chart of accounts to record what is owed to that specific tax agency. You must not make journal entries with these accounts. You should only let the sales tax center record transactions in them so that their balance in the trial balance reflects what you owe to each sales tax agency at any given moment.

This QuickBooks Online Sales Tax training tutorial will show you how to set up combined sales tax rates in QuickBooks Online. In the sales tax center, choose “sales tax settings”. If you have already added the 2 agencies that you are paying the combined tax rate to. Input the combined tax rates. You do this by inputting individual tax agencies in a different part of the pulldown menu. Then, after you input each tax rate, you will have a combined rate. Then, you can use this sales tax rate to put the tax rate on an invoice or sales receipt and the individual amount of taxes for each rate will be calculated and the respective sales tax accounts will increase accordingly.

This QuickBooks Online Sales Tax Tutorial shows how to set up and record federal excise tax in QuickBooks Online. You cannot use the sales tax center for federal sales tax, instead, you must set up a sales tax item on the list of products and services and link the item to a current liability account. Unfortunately, you must calculate the amount of federal excise tax yourself for each sale. Although QuickBooks Online will track the amount owed between dates and during specific sales tax periods by recording the amount of excise tax into the excise tax liability account. You would pay the federal excise tax the same way you would pay any liability amount using the checks or expenses window.

This QuickBooks Online Sales Tax Tutorial shows how to change from cash basis to accrual basis for collecting and paying sales tax. The sales tax reports I QuickBooks online can switch between cash v.s. accrual easily. You will immediately see a change in the sales tax payable for the proportional amount of the sales tax in the same ratio of the invoice payment amount to the amount of the invoice. In other words, if you are doing accrual basis, 100% of the tax is owed as soon as you make the invoice. However, if you are doing cash basis, only the percent collected on the invoice is the present of the sale tax on that invoice is you would owe. So, the account for sales tax payable to that particular state would show that amount until either the rest is collected, or the basis of the report is changed at the top of the screen. If you want the sales tax center to reflect the change from accrual basis to cash basis, you need to change over for the whole company in the account settings window to go from cash to accrual or accrual to cash.