PAYMENT ACCOUNTS

DO NOT USE PAYMENT ACCOUNTS TO TRACK WHO WAS PAID OR WHO PAID THEM!

For example, you have a Truckers Helper Fuel Cardaccount and you have 5 drivers each of whom has a Fuel Card. Set this up a TH Fuel Card, DO NOT set up TH FuelCard 1, TH Fuel Card2, etc. The TH Fuel Card is a single account. You have seperate cards that are used to change against that account but it is a SINGLE ACCOUNT - and needs to be used that way.

When a driver uses his TH Fuel Card, you will enter the charge against the TH Fuel Card account. The porgram will use the Truck Number and/or the Driver Code to track who the charge applies to.If it’s a Driver Advance for example, the Driver Code box will come up and you will assign it to the driver there. If it’s a fuel, or other purchase for a truck, you will enter the truck number. But all of the charges for this account need to be against the account itself.

Another commen Payment Account error is to try and track WHO you paid by using the Payment Account. The PAYMENT ACCOUNT is the account that you used TO PAY FOR something and has no relation in most cases to WHO YOU PAID. Your checking account is a payment account. The truck dealership is normally a CHECK PAYEE, and what the payment is for is detemined by the CHARGE TO account you enter.

Let’s say you have an open account with the truck dealer. He sends you a statement at the end of each month and you pay him at that point. You can treat this as a Charge Account, in which case you would enter each expense at the time that you do the work and get a receipt, OR you can just treat this as an expense account and enter the expenses from the statment when you get it. The later is the easiest way to treat this type of account and eliminates needing to reconcile the account when the statement comes.

Charge accounts should be used for accounts where you make a large number of charges to the account every month and enter them as they are made. When the statement comes you then reconcile it to insure that you have entered all expenses and credits shown on the statement and that the statement is correct and then pay it.

CHARGE TO ACCOUNTS

The while you can use the Charge To account to track who you paid, by setting up a number of accounts for the same category, one for each person you pay, this is generally a bad practice and makes additional work for you at the end of the year. A better way is to turn on the ENTER CHECK PAYEE option for both checking and charge accounts. You then use one account for Maintenance, for example, and enter who you paid as the check payee. This will give you a complete record of who you paid for each charge and will combine all the entries that belong in a single category.

For categories where you may not always want to enter the check payee simply close the Check Payee list when it opens without making a selection, or setup a general customer to charge the expenses to. For example, set up an customer called Truck Stop. Then whenever you purchase fuel or some other item from a truck stop and do not want to record the individual stop use that customer for the check payee.