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QBooks Office
Accounts, Budgets, etc.

  This section contains descriptions of general accounting record types, including accounts, budgets, classes, and terms.

Of the record types in this section, accounts and budgets are the most important. Classes need to be used for every transaction to be of value.

Terms are also included here because they are used for both customers (sale cycle) and vendors (purchase cycle).

Contents

Accounts
Budgets
Classes
Terms

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Accounts

  Accounts make up the general ledger and are the most important record type in QuickBooks. Each account acts as an accumulator for transactions posted to it. Asset, Liability, and Equity type accounts have perpetual balances. Balances for Income and Expense type accounts are theoretically reset to zero at the end of each accounting period, with the difference posted to the Equity account.

QuickBooks uses nested accounts, which can be up to up to 5 levels deep. The balance of any nested account is automatically summed to it's parent.

There are 15 types of general ledger accounts, broken down as follows:

Asset: Bank, Accounts Receivable, Other Current Asset (which normally includes inventory items), Fixed Asset, Other Asset.

Liability: Accounts Payable, Credit Card, Other Current Liability, Long Term Liability.

Equity: Equity

Income: Income, Other Income

Expense: Expense, Other Expense, Cost of Goods Sold (similar to type expense)

Accounts can optionally use account numbers. There is an option in the file preferences to require account numbers when an account is entered, but most of the time it is not used.

Fields in record type: Account

Ver

Field Name

Type

Prop

IIF Name

Description

45-

nKey

Long

PKey

REFNUM

Unique account record identifier

45-

sAcctType

S12

Req

ACCNTTYPE

Account type. One of: "Bank", "AcctRec", "OthCurrAsset", "FixedAsset", "OthAsset", "AcctPay", "CredCard", "OthCurrLiab", "LongTermLiab", "Equity", "Income", "COGS", "Expense", "OthIncome", "OthExpense", "NonPosting".

45-

sAcctSort

S8

Req

-

String that can be used to sort accounts in same order QB does. Mainly useful for reports.

Examples: Bank type accounts = "11+", Other Asset type accounts = "19+", Income type accounts = "53-". Always 2 decimal digits, followed by a + or -. The + indicates that the account normally has a debit balance, - indicates normally credit balance.

In the future, additional characters will be added in the 4th through 8th positions to aid in account classification for ratio reports. Currently, only 3 of the 8 possible character positions are used.

45-

sSpecAcct

S16

Opt

EXTRA

Predesignated special account Special accounts are 'marked' accounts QB uses for processing - such as where to debit / credit accounts receivable.

One of: "AcctRec", "UndepFunds", "InvtAsset", "AcctPay", "PayrollLiab", "SalesTaxPay", "OpeningBalEquity", "RetEarnings", "UncatIncome", "COGS", "PayrollExp", "UncatExpense", "PurchOrd", or "Estimates".

45-

sName

S31

Req

-

Short account name. Does not include colon separators or names of parent accounts.

45-

sFullName

S159

Req

NAME

Full name with colon separators and name(s) of parents - if any. Field sName and sFullName will always have the same value if the account is not nested.

45-

nNestLevel

Long

OptDft0

-

Depth of nesting. If missing, this is a root (has no parent) account.

45-

kParent

Long

FKeyOpt

-

Key of parent account - which is in this set of records

45-

sDescr

S29

Opt

DESC

Brief description of account

45-

sAcctNum

S7

Opt

ACCNUM

Account number - optional There is a settings flag to indicate if account numbers are being used (bAcctNumbers). If account numbers are not being used, there is no guarantee that each account will have a number. Any numbers that exist are returned, even if not used - however there is no enforced scheme for what the user entered numbers are.

45-

mBalance

Curr

OptDft0

OBAMOUNT

Current balance of account Current balance of this account - the sum of all debits and credits to this account for all transactions posted to it. In the QB import / export (IIF) help file documentation, this is mistakenly listed as the opening balance of the account. QBooks Office also exports the current balance of income and expense accounts - even though they are never displayed by QB.

45-

sNote

S25

Opt

BANKNUM

Miscellaneous, such as bank number

45-

nTaxLine

Long

Opt

SCD

US income tax form line assigned to account. See Intuit file BUSTAX.SCD (supplied with QB) to associate this number with the specific tax form and line number.

45-

sLastDocNum

S11

Opt

-

Last doc created, such as last check number. Only used with accounts that automatically sequence transaction document numbers - such as checking accounts, invoices, and purchase orders.

-5-

dLastOnline

Date

Opt

-

Date of last online connection to bank. Applies to online accounts only.

-5-

bInactive

Bool

OptDftF

HIDDEN

T if currently inactive. (Inactive checkbox is checked)

Contents of this page
QBooks Office Overview


Budgets

  Budgets are used to enter projected income and expenses or projected account balances by month.

Each budget record has projected amounts for a full year. The kAcct and nYear fields are always present - and they can optionally be further broken down by customer:job and/or class. All months do not need to be filled in.

Budget amounts do not affect transaction processing. They are only used for reports and graphs.

Fields in record type: Budget

Ver

Field Name

Type

Prop

IIF Name

Description

-45

nKey

Long

PKey

-

Unique budget item identifier - never externally referenced

-45

kAcct

Long

FKeyReq

ACCNT

Key of account these budget amounts are for.

-45

nYear

Long

Req

STARTDATE?

Year

-45

kCustJob

Long

FKeyOpt

CUSTOMER

Key of customer or job

-45

kClass

Long

FKeyOpt

CLASS

Key of class these budget amounts apply to.

-45

mPeriod1

Curr

Opt

AMOUNT

Budgeted dollar amount - 1st period

-45

mPeriod2

Curr

Opt

AMOUNT

Budgeted dollar amount - 2nd period

-45

mPeriod3

Curr

Opt

AMOUNT

Budgeted dollar amount - 3rd period

-45

mPeriod4

Curr

Opt

AMOUNT

Budgeted dollar amount - 4th period

-45

mPeriod5

Curr

Opt

AMOUNT

Budgeted dollar amount - 5th period

-45

mPeriod6

Curr

Opt

AMOUNT

Budgeted dollar amount - 6th period

-45

mPeriod7

Curr

Opt

AMOUNT

Budgeted dollar amount - 7th period

-45

mPeriod8

Curr

Opt

AMOUNT

Budgeted dollar amount - 8th period

-45

mPeriod9

Curr

Opt

AMOUNT

Budgeted dollar amount - 9th period

-45

mPeriod10

Curr

Opt

AMOUNT

Budgeted dollar amount - 10th period

-45

mPeriod11

Curr

Opt

AMOUNT

Budgeted dollar amount - 11th period

-45

mPeriod12

Curr

Opt

AMOUNT

Budgeted dollar amount - 12th period

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QBooks Office Overview


Classes

  Classes are used in QuickBooks® to group transactions so reports can have dollar amounts separated by department, division, location, or any other user defined grouping.

If and how they are used is not critical and there are no enforcement mechanisms in QuickBooks® to ensure they are entered. In most of the data files we have examined, they are either not used at all or used on some transactions - which makes them useless for reporting.

Fields in record type: Class

Ver

Field Name

Type

Prop

IIF Name

Description

-45

nKey

Long

PKey

REFNUM

Unique class record identifier

-45

sName

S31

Req

-

Short name of this class. Does not include colon separators or names of parent classes.

-45

sFullName

S159

Req

NAME

Full name with colon separators - w/ name(s) of parents if any

-45

nNestLevel

Long

OptDft0

-

Depth of nesting. Parent (root) if missing

-45

kParent

Long

FKeyOpt

-

Key of parent in this set of records

--5

bInactive

Bool

OptDftF

HIDDEN

T if currently inactive (Inactive checkbox is checked)

Contents of this page
QBooks Office Overview


Terms
 
Terms are payment terms that can apply to both receivables owed by customers and payables owed to vendors.

There are 2 categories of terms - date driven, where payment is due by a certain day of the month, and days driven where payment is due within a specific number of days.

Terms affect transaction processing in that dates are set in transaction documents based on terms that were selected when the document was initially created.

Fields in record type: Terms

Ver

Field Name

Type

Prop

IIF Name

Description

-45

nKey

Long

PKey

REFNUM

Unique terms (for customer or vendor) record identifier

-45

sName

S31

Req

NAME

Name used for terms

-45

bDateDriven

Bool

Opt

TERMSTYPE

T if for date driven terms where payment to be made by a certain date of the month. Otherwise, payment is to be made within a specific number of days.

-45

nDueDays

Long

Opt

DUEDAYS

Number of days in which payment is due. If bDateDriven = T, this is the day of the month on which payment is due.

-45

rDiscPercent

Curr

Opt

DISCPER

Discount percentage for early payment

-45

nDiscDays

Long

Opt

DISCDAYS

Number of days by which early payment gets the qDiscPercent discount

-45

nMinDays

Long

Opt

MINDAYS

Applies to date driven only

--5

bInactive

Bool

OptDftF

HIDDEN

T if currently inactive (Inactive checkbox is checked)

Contents of this page
QBooks Office Overview