Organizational Tip #8 - Creating Recurring Customer Invoices or Vendor Payments in Quickbooks using Memorized Transactions

Whether you use Quickbooks for business or personal reasons, you likely have recurring customer invoices or vendor bills that can be automated using the memorized transactions feature already built into Quickbooks.  Anything billed or paid on a regular recurring basis at the same cost is ideal for using with memorized transactions.  Some examples of memorized transaction items are:  Internet bills, rent, services you sell, any type of insurance, loan payments, professional fees like advertising, and software or magazine subscriptions.  The benefits of using the memorized transaction feature is that it saves time as well as making sure recurring items always get entered into your records.

To set up a memorized transaction, go to either Customers or Vendors, depending upon if you are going to automate a customer invoice or a vendor bill, and choose the customer or vendor on the left panel.  Select the most recent customer invoice or vendor bill and open it to view the details, or click on the "New Transactions" button to create a new customer invoice or vendor bill.  Both customer invoices and vendor bills work the same so memorized transactions can be created for both if you have recurring income and expense instances that are the same price each month.

Once you have set the category, amount, and memo the way you want, click Edit, then select Memorize Bill.  NOTE:  If you are memorizing a customer invoice, the Memorize text will say Memorize Invoice.  If you are memorizing a vendor bill paid by credit card, the text will say Memorize Credit Card Payment.  The Memorize text is based on how you originally entered the transaction.

Once you select Memorize Bill you will get a Memorize Transaction pop up box asking you to set the details for this particular memorized transaction.  From here, choose the default for how the transaction is processed and with what frequency.  The default for processing the transaction is for the transaction to be added to your reminders list, which will add a reminder and notify you of the transaction in the memorized transactions portion of the Reminders List that opens when first logging into Quickbooks.  Selecting this option will require you to verify the transaction before it is entered.  You can also select "Do Not Remind Me" which will not add a reminder to the memorized transaction portion of the Reminders List.  Lastly, you can select "Automate Transaction Entry" which will automatically enter the transaction without requiring verification beforehand.

Next, select from the "How Often" drop down list to choose how often the memorized transaction needs to occur.  Choose whether to set the memorized transaction to reoccur daily, weekly, every two weeks, twice a month, monthly, every two months, quarterly, twice a year, and annually.  Once you have selected the frequency, click on the drop down for "Next Date" and select the next time the transaction should be processed. 

Optionally, you can also set the number of times to reoccur.  This would come in handy if you had a loan or car payment, or anything with a set number of payments that could be predicted.  Lastly, you can set the "Days in Advance to Enter" based on how much time you need to process the customer invoice or vendor bill.  Once you are done, click the OK button.  Save and close the original customer invoice or vendor bill.  Go to the Lists menu and select "Memorized Transaction List" to view your new memorized transaction.

From here you can verify the settings are set the way you want them to be.  If you want to make changes, right click on the transaction and select "Edit Memorized Transaction".  Once the desired changes have been made, click OK to save the new settings.  To remove a memorized transaction from the list, right click on the transaction and select "Delete Memorized Transaction".

Good luck and Happy Halloween!

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to our Blog