Canada

Managing expenses, banking, and account settings

This guide covers common workflows for tracking employee costs, handling online purchases, managing bank feeds, and updating your account settings in QuickBooks Online.

Track employee expenses and reimbursements

If employees pay for business costs out of pocket and you reimburse them via payroll, you can track these expenses accurately and bill them back to customers using a clearing account.

1. Create a clearing account:

   • Go to the Settings (gear icon) and select Chart of Accounts.
   • Select New to create a Bank account type.
   • Name it “Reimbursement Clearing” (do not connect this to online banking).
   • Save and close.

2. Record the expenses:

   • Go to the + New menu and select Check (or Expense).
   • For the Bank Account, select “Reimbursement Clearing.”
   • Enter the payee and expense details (account, amount, description, and customer:project if billable).
   • Save. This creates a negative balance in the clearing account, representing the money owed to the employee.

3. Reimburse via payroll:

   • Set up a payroll addition item (if not already created) that links to the “Reimbursement Clearing” account as the expense account/liability account.
   • When running payroll, add this item to the employee’s paycheck.
   • This creates a deposit (debit) into the clearing account, zeroing out the balance.

Enter sales tax for online purchases

When recording expenses for items ordered online, you may need to specify the correct tax status.

• Out of Scope: Use this option if the purchase is not subject to sales tax and you do not want the amount to appear on your Sales Tax Return report at all.
• Exempt or Zero-rated: While these options apply no tax, the transaction amounts may still flow to the Total Sales or Total Expenses lines on your Sales Tax Return. Use “Out of Scope” to omit the figures completely.

Record credit card cash back (Canada)

If you receive cash back rewards on a business credit card, you must record the deposit to the correct account.

• Post the cash back amount to a Cash or Petty Cash account.
• For Canadian users, this typically corresponds to GIFI code 1001 (Cash) or 1000 (Petty Cash).

Connect PayPal (Canada)

To import your PayPal transactions automatically:

1. Go to Transactions in the left menu and select Banking (or Bank feeds).
2. Select Add account or Link account.
3. In the search field, type PayPal.
4. Select Paypal (CAN) from the list of results.
5. Enter your PayPal credentials and click Log in to authorize the connection.

Resolve user license sync issues

If you have purchased additional users but they are not appearing in QuickBooks Online, try refreshing your license data:

1. Go to the Help (?) icon in the upper right corner.
2. Search for or navigate to Manage My License (or Manage Users depending on your specific view).
3. Select Sync License Data Online to update your subscription details.

Switch between US and Canada versions

QuickBooks Online US and Canada are separate products with different regional features and tax compliance requirements.

• Data compatibility: You cannot convert or import data files directly between the US and Canadian editions.
• Changing versions: There is no toggle to switch regions. To move from the US version to the Canadian version (or vice versa), you must cancel your current subscription and sign up for the new version.
• Data migration: You will need to manually re-enter your beginning balances and lists into the new account.

Streamline data entry with keyboard shortcuts

To speed up data entry for expenses, timesheets, and other forms:

• Type-ahead matching: In any name dropdown (Employee, Vendor, or Other), you do not need to scroll through the list. Simply type the first few characters of the name, and QuickBooks will match it. Press Tab to accept the selection and move to the next field.
• Inactive names: If you want to hide names from dropdown lists, you must mark them as Make Inactive. Note that this also hides them from checks, bills, and credit card charges.