How to Avoid Recording Duplicate Income in QuickBooks
The entire idea behind bookkeeping is that you can maintain an accurate record of your income and expenses for the purposes of paying taxes and planning projects. Of course, maintaining accuracy isn’t always as easy as it sounds. Overstating income or expenses is a great way to throw things out of wack and create headaches. Today, let’s focus on income overstatement.
One of the most common reasons for overstated income is recording duplicate income transactions.
An overstated income is dangerous because it means your business is now assumed to be more profitable than it actually is. This can lead to some nasty surprises when you check the business bank account and realize you have less to spend than you thought you did.
Let’s explore the causes of duplicate transactions in QuickBooks and how we can avoid them!
What causes duplicate income?
Duplicate income is often the result of an honest mistake. QuickBooks has a lot of great automation software and technology that makes our lives easier. Often, however, mixing humans with software is a recipe for confusion.
Most of the time, a duplicate income transaction happens because someone entered a transaction manually, even though that transaction was already reported automatically via QB’s bank feed software. So how do we avoid this?
How to Avoid QuickBooks Duplicate Income
The best way to avoid duplicate transactions is to maintain a routine of reconciling your manual transaction entries with your company’s bank statement. In doing so, you’re ensuring that your books are lining up with reality: the true activity in the business account.
Reconciling should be in every bookkeeper’s toolbox. Here’s how to reconcile your business bank account in Quickbooks:
First, head to the Accounting tab. In there, you should see a sub-tab labeled Reconcile. Then, you’ll need to enter a Beginning Date and an Ending Date. The beginning date we’ll be the last date you reconciled. The ending date would be today, or any date after the beginning date according to your needs.
Quickbooks will pull up your manual entries and your bank statement side by side. Then, you just need to go line-by-line and ensure that each entry made matches an actual transaction in the bank. By the end, the difference listed on the page should be zero. If it’s not, you may have a duplicate transaction.
Here’s how to get rid of duplicate transactions in both Quickbooks Desktop and Quickbooks Online!
How To Fix Duplicate Income In QuickBooks Desktop
To begin, launch your Quickbooks Desktop application and open up your company file. You’ll need to go to the Banking menu and select Make Deposits. Find the duplicate transaction, select it, click the Edit menu, and the click Delete Line. Don’t forget to save!
You’re halfway there! You still need to delete the transaction from your Undeposited Funds list.
To do this, go to the Lists menu and select Chart of Accounts. Then, double-click Undeposited Funds. Select, Edit, and Delete the duplicate payment. That’s all!
How To Fix Duplicate Income in QuickBooks Online
After logging in, go to the Banking page. Go to Bank Feeds, and then Bank Feeds Center. Then, in the Items Reviewed section, select the account containing the duplicate transactions. From there, you can simply delete any duplicates by selecting them and then hitting Delete Selected. Hit Yes to save it, and you’re all set!
Other Causes of Duplicate Transactions
Simple human error isn’t the only cause of duplicate income in Quickbooks. There are actually several different causes that can all affect your bottom line and make it less accurate. Here’s a quick rundown:
Importing External Data – When you use a CSV (Excel) file to import transaction data to your Quickbooks account, it often creates duplicate data either by some glitch or because certain data was already present in your Quickbooks platform.
Point of Sale – If you have recurring clients or customers, sometimes they get put into the system multiple times. Perhaps in one entry they use their middle name, and in another, they do not. This can lead to annoying duplicate transactions. To merge duplicate customers, select the two records, click I Want To, click Merge, and then hit Merge Customers.
Duplicate income is dangerous. With Booktied’s help, however, you can maintain accuracy and keep your business safe. Booktied is a bookkeeping training and outsourcing company that enables you to either dispatch your bookkeeping to our professionals, or become a QuickBooks pro yourself! Check out our services and get in touch today to get started!