QuickBooks – The GST Detail Report
Software: Intuit QuickBooks accounting software
The Tax Agency Detail Report in Intuit QuickBooks accounting software consist of four parts:
- Sales
- Purchases
- Tax on Sales
- Tax on Purchases
The Sales Invoices (income) show under the “Sales” section and the expenses show under the “Purchases” section of the report. The “Amount” in both the Sales and the Purchases are the total taxable amount of each tax code associated in the transaction. For example: The Bill transaction, SA01, consist of 2 items: the item P101 has a net amount of 100.000 (GST of 7,000), and item B228 has a net amount of 9,000 (GST of 630). Since both items are associated with a same tax code, the net amount (taxable amount) is grouped and presented in the report.
You can add a “memo” column in the report, showing the line description of the transaction, but the word “-MULTIPLE-” will be printed if there is more than one expense line in the transaction. Since it printed the total taxable amount of a tax code used in the transaction, QuickBooks can only indicate that it consists of more than 1 memo by printing the word “-MULTIPLE-” in the Memo field.
Based on the transaction reference number, the user is able to trace back the transaction via a general ledger report or if you are in Quickbooks, double-click to zoom into the transaction, if you are required to see the detail.
By default, the “General Journals” transactions are printed in the report (The objective of this report is to check for mistakes made in the entry, hence all transactions are printed). You can hide those Non-related General Journals such as accrual or depreciation from the report. From the Tax Agency Detail report, click the “Customize Report” button to get into the Modify Report wizard and remove the Journal transaction type from the report (Filter tab | TransactionType filter, then check all the transaction type except Journal).
The Tax on Sales (Output tax) and the Tax on Purchases are the main sections, which gives you the tax amount. You can filter the tax item to view the taxable and tax amount of each tax item used in the account. Then, export the report to Microsoft Excel to sum the taxable amount of the Tax on Sales and the Tax on Purchases section.
Once you are ready to file your tax, click the “File Tax Return” button at the top of the Tax Agency Detail report to clear off the tax payable or refund from the GL (General Ledger) account(s). Please note that QuickBooks will NOT automatically file the tax return for you, you are still required to login to IRAS (Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore) website to file the Form-5. What QuickBooks does is it created a General Journal to reclassify the tax amount from the relevant tax account to the Accounts Receivable (tax refund) or Account Payable (tax payable) account.
Do a Pay Bill transaction to pay your tax liability once you have physically paid your tax or a Receive Payment transaction upon receiving the tax refund from IRAS.
Don’t forget to set a “Closing Date” to lock up your account once you have filed the tax to prevent any transaction accidentally recorded in the prior period.