Expert: Arthur Naman - 7/29/2009

Question
QUESTION: I am using quick books basic 2004 to track home owners association dues for a small mobile home park. The dues are charged monthly by adding a statement charge not by creating an invoice. Most tenants pay quarterly or semi-annually so they have a credit balance while the dues are being charges monthly. When the payment is applied the unused portion when it is applied appears as an unused credit. In the receive payments window when I am applying a customer payment in the lower right corner it reads unused credits and most of the customers have amounts listed as unused credits. While the monthly dues charges since the time of their payment appear as unpaid. How do I apply that unused credit to the unpaid charges? In my Quick Books 2001 there was a box to check to apply any unused credit but it is not in this version that I can find. The credit balances are correct on the customer balance report but on the A/R Aging there are credit balances in the over ninety and charges in the current, 30, 60 day columns to produce the correct credit balance. If you can help I would sure appreciate it.

ANSWER: I do not have the 2004 QB version.

I you can apply a credit to a specific charge, to a specific invoice number. That is opposed to just applying the credit to the oldest charge. There is a setting for this I believe.

I have had the problem you describe -- credit in one column and charges in another column.

The payments need to be applied to specific invoices.

See if that works. Let me know if it does not.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I sent the following in the comment of the thank you reply but was not sure if you would see it so I am sending it here too. If the credit originated with a payment then from the aging report you can quick zoom to the customer, quick zoom to the check received window where the credit originated, and apply it to any open charges. I did that and it cleaned the report up a bit. What I can not get to apply are the credits that originated as the customers opening balance when we set them up back in 2000 that appear as a statement charge. These still appear as unused credits. If you have any insight on that I would appreciate your help.

Answer
I have experienced the same problem you have -- credits which could not be applied to specific invoices. QB can also be used where credits and payments are charged to the oldest balance first regardless of there being a specific invoice to apply them to.

The only suggestion have is to find invoices where were not paid and apply the invoices to those specific invoices. It's a problem digging back through invoices though.

You might find another forum to ask this question -- on QB's web site perhaps.