Merchant Processing Account

birdsafe

I'm trying to add an account (offline) to keep track of my business credit card processing fees. There seems to be no good option for type of account - it's not checking, savings or credit card. Does it really matter what type of account, as long as I categorize the transactions properly for my reporting? Thanks.

mshiggins

Is there a reason you would not want the business credit card processing fees to be recorded in the business credit card account?

NotACPA

And, I'd think, that in the business card account those fees would be recorded as expenses …not as their own account.

birdsafe

Thanks for the responses, but I am not talking about credit card expenses, I am talking about merchant expenses - the expenses I pay to accept credit cards, so there is no "account" that I can connect to to download transactions.

Tom Young

That haircut in your selling price charged by the banks/processors IS AN EXPENSE and as such has to be captured in a Quicken Category (Quicken-speak for what real accountants would refer to as "income and expense accounts) and reflected in a Profit and Loss report, not an Account that appears on your Balance Sheet.

Basically each sale would be reported in a split transaction, either in the checking Account if you're on the cash basis of accounting, or a receivables Account if you're using accrual accounting. So if you sell an item for $100.00 and the processing fee is 2% ($2) the entry would be:

That's how you keep track of the revenue you're loosing by accepting credit cards.

birdsafe

I don't need to be told WHAT the fees are or what they are for, I am well aware of that. They are not taken out of any account that is connectable. So either I need to create an account to manually record them in, or manually add them without an account.

Tom Young

"So either I need to create an account to manually record them in, or manually add them without an account."

I don't understand what you're saying here. The accounting for processing fees really does amount to the entry I've show you, so maybe the problem here comes down to the "mechanics" of how the fee to you is assessed and reported to you, or something?

So, for example, if the fee isn't taken out "upfront" with each day's deposits but instead accrues and you pay the fee periodically, and you know the amount of the fees in "real time", then creating a manual Liability Account in Quicken, something called "Merchant Processing" or something would be in order. You'd simply make an entry into this manual account increasing the liability, with an offset to the "CC Processing Fees" Category.

birdsafe

Thank you - creating the Liability Account in Quicken — that is what I needed to know.