QuickBooks 2013 For Dummies

Reconciling Your Credit Card Statement and Paying the Bill

You reconcile, or balance, a credit card account the same way you balance a bank account. (For help with this task, see Chapter 14.) After you successfully get the account to balance and click Reconcile Now, QuickBooks displays the Make Payment dialog box, asking how you want to pay the bill. You can either pay by check or enter a bill to be paid later. (The second option is the accounts payable method, remember?)

If you opt to pay the bill by writing a check, you go straight to the Write Checks window, and the Expenses tab is all filled out for you. Fill in the name of the card issuer, the date, and so on. Click Save & New or Save & Close when you’re done. The payment is recorded in both the Checking register and the Credit Card register because you charge the credit card liability account with the check total.

If you opt to enter the payment as a bill to be paid at a later date, you go to the Enter Bills window. Fill everything out just as you would if you were in the Write Checks window. When you click Save & New, the transaction is recorded in the Accounts Payable register and the Credit Card register.

See Chapter 6 if you need to know more about either the Enter Bills window or the Write Checks window.