Save Time for Summer by Memorizing Transactions 🌞🏖️
Summer’s here, but your QuickBooks work doesn’t take a break! ⏳ Save time and enjoy the sunny days by memorizing transactions in QuickBooks. This feature helps automate bills and reminders, cutting down on repetitive data entry, so you can spend more time outdoors.
What Are Memorized Transactions?
Memorized transactions allow QuickBooks to remember the details of recurring financial events, such as:
- Monthly bills with fixed amounts (e.g., web hosting fees)
- Regular payments with varying amounts (e.g., utility bills)
- Repeated journal entries
- Recurring customer invoices
By setting up memorized transactions, you can automate routine financial tasks, reducing errors and saving valuable time.
How to Set Up Memorized Transactions
Step 1: Create the Initial Transaction
Enter the transaction as you normally would, but leave the amount blank if it varies. like the one shown in Figure 1. Click the Edit menu, and then click Memorize Bill. The dialog box shown in Figure 2 opens.
Figure 1: To memorize a bill payment that changes regularly, fill out the transaction form minus the amount.
Step 2: Memorize the Transaction
Figure 2: When you click Edit/Memorize Bill, this dialog box opens.
The vendor’s name appears in the Name field. If you want a more descriptive name so you’ll recognize it in a list, change it here. You have a few decisions to make in order to set up the repetitive transaction:
- Do you want QuickBooks to remind you in advance of the bill’s due date? Click Remind Me. If not, click Don’t Remind Me. And if it’s a bill whose amount remains the same every time, you can click Automatically Enter. If the transaction is a part of a group you’ve created, click the With Transactions in Group button.
- How often do you pay this bill? Generally, it will be monthly, but QuickBooks gives you several options.
- Check the Number Remaining box if you have a transaction with a finite number of payments, such as paying off a company vehicle.
- How much warning do you want? Enter a number in the Days In Advance To Enter field.
- If you’ve created a group and you want this transaction to be a part of it, select the name from the drop-down list.
Using Memorized Transactions
When you want to use a memorized transaction, click the Lists menu, then Memorized Transactions List to open the dialog box shown in Figure 3. You can also “memorize” repetitive reports. Open the report you want to work with by clicking, for example, Reports/Company & Financial/Profit & Loss YTD Comparison. A dialog box like the one in Figure 4 opens. Accept the name presented, or change it to one that you’ll more easily recognize. If you want to save reports in groups you’ve created, like Accountant, select the group from the drop-down list.
Figure 3: The Memorized Transactions List allows you to customize to your preference.
Figure 4: The Memorize Report dialog box…
Thanks for the memories
Memorized transactions and reports can not only save you time for more summer adventures: They provide another way for QuickBooks to give you a quick look at what you owe and are owed, and how your company is performing overall.