Wokingham Accountants

Quickbooks Contra

Contra

The definition of ‘contra’ is: ‘against’ or ‘opposite’.

You can add a contra if no invoices/bills have been issued and you have either:

  • received a payment and refunded it to the same place.

  • made a payment and received a refund from the same place.


Adding a Contra

Click on the 'banking' tab on the left hand menu and it will take you to a list of bank transactions downloaded from your bank account.

Find the transactions that you wish to contra against one another - they should be equal and opposite (i.e. £100 paid in & £100 paid out).

Click on the transactions by clicking on the amount (i.e. clicking on £100 in the example above) & not the ‘Add’ or the tick next to the transaction. Then enter the following details:

  • For the ‘received’/’paid in’ transaction:

    • Select ‘Deposit’

    • Select Payee: leave blank

    • Expense account: select ‘suspense’ and if there isn’t an account called suspense add it by scrolling to the top of the expenses list

    • VAT code: ‘No VAT’

    • Click ‘Add’

  • For the ‘spent’/’paid out’ transaction:

    • Select ‘Expense’

    • Select Payee: leave blank

    • Expense account: select ‘suspense’ and if there isn’t an account called suspense add it by scrolling to the top of the expenses list

    • VAT code: ‘No VAT’

    • Click ‘Add’


Result

The result of adding a Contra is that you have an expense account with a positive amount and a negative amount so there is no effect on your accounts.

If the ‘No VAT’ code is selected the transaction won’t be entered on your VAT Return.