QuickBooks 2010: The Missing Manual

Chapter 11. Producing Statements

Statements are the perfect solution for businesses that charge for time and other services in bits and pieces, such as law offices, wireless telephone services, or astrology advisors. Statements summarize the statement charges racked up during the statement period (usually a month). This type of sales form is also great for showing payments and outstanding balances, the way your cable bill shows the charges for your monthly service, the Pay-Per-View movies you ordered, your last payment, and your current balance. So even if you invoice your customers, you can send statements to show them their previous balances, payments received, new charges, and overdue invoices. (To learn about the limitations of statements, see Statements.)

In this chapter, you’ll learn how to produce statements, whether you accumulate charges over time or simply summarize your customers’ account status.

Producing Statements

You don’t fill in a QuickBooks statement in one fell swoop the way you do invoices and sales receipts. Think of a statement as a report of all the charges and payments during the statement period that you then send to your customer. A statement’s previous balance, charges, and customer payments all depend on the dates you choose for the statement. Businesses typically send statements out once a month, but you can generate statements for any time period you want.

In QuickBooks, creating statements is a two-step process:

1. Enter the statement charges, which are the ...