Lesson 9-1: Types of Lists – There are many different types of lists that can be created in QuickBooks. These lists help you keep track of fixed assets, Sales Reps, vehicles and more. To view the types of lists that can be created, click the Lists menu. You can also view lists that can be created for customers and vendors by hovering over the Customer and Vendor Profile Lists in the Lists menu. Below is a brief description of the types of lists that can be created.
Fixed Assets List: A fixed asset also known as property, plant and equipment, is a long-term piece of property that a firm owns and uses it in the production of its income, and is not expected to be consumed or converted into cash any sooner than at least one year’s time. For example, many car companies used robotic arms on the assembly line to assemble automobiles. These massive robotic arms are in place for to help build cars which will be sold to produce income for the company. The robotic arms are expected to be part of the assembly line for more than one year and are considered a fixed asset. The Fixed Asset list will help you keep track of the fixed assets that your company owns. Be advised that the list you create does not affect any financial data in QuickBooks. It is a list only to be used to track the fixed assets your company owns.
Price Level List: The price level list allows you to create a special pricing structure for customers and jobs. For example, there may be certain customers that receive a 10% discount for various items that your company sells, or you may want to charge certain customers 10% more than the normal rate. Either option can be done by creating a price level list to be applied to specific customers. Before you can create a price level list, you must first activate this feature. To active the price-level list feature, click the Edit Menu, then click Sales and Customers in the left pane, then click the Company Preferences tab and place a checkmark in the Use Price Levels list box and click OK on the right to save the new changes.
Class List: You can think of class as a different division of a company that allows you to allocate revenue and expenses to those specific divisions. For example, my fictitious company, Joe’s Landscaping, also has also performs pressure-washing services. In QuickBooks, a class has been created for the landscaping expenses and revenues, and another class has been created for the pressure-washing revenue and expenses. When revenue ad expenses are recognized from the landscaping jobs, they will be allocated to the landscaping class (division). The same will be done for the pressure-washing class (division). These classes are a great way of assigning transactions by division, department, branch location or properties that you own. You can also create subclasses as well. To create classes, you must activate this feature. To do this, click the Edit menu, then click Accounting > Company Preferences and place a checkmark in the Use Class Tracking for transactions box.
Other Names List: This is a list can be used when writing checks to parties other than vendors, customers or employees. This name is usually comprised of the owner(s) of the company, and is used when issuing distribution checks. The names in this list will not appear when creating a bill, credit, invoice or purchase order – it will only appear when you use the write check feature.
Sales Rep List: The Sales Rep list is comprised of a list of salesmen from your company. You can add names to this list when you need to connect a salesperson to a customer. This is a great way to keep track of sales by the sales rep if they will earn a commission for each sale that they make. After you create the list, a sales rep can be chosen from the sales-rep drop down box on an invoice to indicate which sales rep made the sale.
Customer Type List: This list can be used to categorize your customers. For example, if you want to categorize your customers by geographical area (north, south, east, west), you can use this option to do so. Using this list will allow you to sort a report according to a customer type that you have created.
Vendor Type List: This list can be used to categorize the vendors, which can also be used to create reports and sort the report based on the vendor type. For example, you can create a vendor type by using a rating scale such as good, fair or poor to rate the service provided by the vendor.
Job Type List: You can categorize the types of jobs that are completed by your company. For example, Joe’s Landscaping will use the job types Commercial or Residential to differentiate between the types of jobs that were completed.
Terms List: The terms list is used to dictate when your company expects payment to be made. If your company expects payment to be made in full in 30 days, then you will create a term call Net 30. This term will be chosen when an invoice is created. You may also create a term called 1% 10 Net 30 which means that your company will allow a customer to deduct 1% of the sales price if payment is made in 10 days, but if payment is not made within 10 days, then the full payment is due in 30 days. It is important that you indicate your company’s terms on an invoice to dictate when payment is expected to be made.
Customer Message List: You can add a message to an invoice using the Customer Message drop down box at the bottom. The messages in that box are derived from the Customer Message list. You can create any message using the Customer Message list and add the message as needed.
Payment Method List: When you accept a payment from a customer, you will need to choose how the payment was made. Some of the popular options are check, credit card or cash, but you can add more options to the list if needed.
Ship Via List: This list will allow you to choose how items will be shipped. You can choose the options that were created in the list by selecting it from, the Ship Via drop down box on an invoice. For example, you can create an option called Air Shipment, Overnight Shipment or Ground Shipping.
Vehicles List: This list will help you keep track of which vehicles are owned by your company. If you are billing your customers for mileage, then you should keep track of which vehicle was used and how many miles were driven during the trip.
Memorized Transactions List: This list is comprised of the memorized transactions that you have saved. You can access this list to edit, delete or create a new group of memorized transactions.