QuickBooks Bookkeeping: Review a Client Period

QuickBooks bookkeeping means recording each client transaction once, reconciling the accounts to independent statements and resolving exceptions before review. For an Australian client file, start from the accepted prior close. Finish with saved reports supporting the balances and a reviewer’s decision.

Prepare Your Next QuickBooks Period

Use this procedure for an existing Australian QuickBooks Online file with authorised client access. The bill and ageing-report steps assume Essentials or a higher edition with those functions. Confirm the client’s edition before assigning the work.

QuickBooks bookkeeping software holds the client’s invoices, purchases, payments and account balances. Your recurring job is to make those records agree with the evidence for the period.

1. Confirm the Opening Records

Check the entity and reporting period against the engagement. Confirm that each preparer and reviewer has named access appropriate to their work. For invitation and first-week access steps, use the QuickBooks Online Accountant guide.

Gather the prior trial balance and reconciliation reports, complete bank and card statements, sales records, supplier documents and outstanding questions. Record the agreed accounting basis separately from the GST reporting basis. A cash-basis GST report and an accrual profit and loss report answer different questions.

Compare opening ledger balances with the accepted previous close. Confirm that the statement period follows the previous reconciliation without a gap. Stop an unexplained opening difference before entering a balancing journal.

Agree who supplies missing records and who can approve corrections. The wider bookkeeping client onboarding checklist covers acceptance and record responsibilities across systems.

Record Invoices, Bills and Receipts

Choose the entry from the underlying event, then check whether the client has already recorded it. A bank withdrawal can settle an existing bill or pay a new expense. Treating both as a fresh expense counts the purchase twice.

2. Enter the Supported Transaction

Use the source document to check the counterparty, transaction date, reference and gross amount. Check the account and GST treatment before saving. Keep the original document or an accessible link with the transaction reference.

Source evidence	QuickBooks record	Check before accepting
Sale on credit and the client’s sales record	Create an Invoice using New or Create	Customer, product or service, quantity, amount, invoice terms and GST option agree with the sale
Supplier invoice awaiting payment	Create a Bill	Supplier, bill number, due date, category or item, amount and GST agree with the document
Receipt for an already paid purchase with no existing entry	Create an Expense	Payment account and business purpose agree with the receipt and statement
Customer remittance or supplier payment confirmation	Apply the payment to the existing invoice or bill	Correct customer or supplier, payment account and amount, including any part payment
Movement between the client’s own bank accounts	Record a transfer between those accounts	Both statement entries support one transfer, with no sale or purchase created

Intuit’s invoice instructions explain the sales fields. Its bill-entry instructions cover unpaid supplier purchases.

For a supplier payment already made, open Pay bills, select the payment account and payment date, then select the bill. Check the applied amount before saving. Recording the payment documents what happened. Confirm the actual bank payment separately.

In Accounting, open Receipts and review each upload. Correct extracted details first. Match it to an existing entry where one exists, or create the appropriate new expense or bill. Intuit’s receipt review steps explain both paths.

A Fictional Small-Business File

A GST-registered service business uses QuickBooks Online Essentials. Its owner raises a $1,100 sales invoice, including $100 GST, and uploads a $110 stationery tax invoice, including $10 GST. Both transactions are wholly business-related and have the stated GST treatment.

The client enters the invoice and uploads the purchase document. The bookkeeper checks the sales coding and records the paid stationery purchase as a $100 expense plus $10 GST. The purchase must meet the ATO’s GST credit conditions, including business use and the required tax invoice.

When the customer’s $1,100 payment arrives, the bookkeeper applies it to the invoice. The sale remains $1,000 before GST, with the invoice settled. Coding the receipt as new sales would duplicate income. The reviewer checks the invoice, receipt and payment evidence before accepting the result.

Match and Reconcile the Client’s Accounts

A suggested match still needs comparison with the source record. Reconciliation then checks the recorded activity against the statement for the whole period.

3. Check the Bank Records and Match Once

Open All apps, Accounting, then Bank transactions. Compare the downloaded or imported range with the statement and the entries already recorded. Check for missing days and overlaps between bank downloads and manual imports.

A connection established at takeover does not prove this period is complete. Compare opening and closing statement balances with the prior records, especially after a reconnection or replacement import.

Expand each line and compare its amount, counterparty and reference with the existing record. Choose Match for an existing entry. Use Categorise only for a genuinely unrecorded transaction after checking its account and GST treatment.

Intuit’s banking-page guidance uses Pending and Posted tabs. Pending contains downloaded records awaiting accounting treatment. Where your file shows For review instead, review those waiting records before proceeding.

For a transfer, expand the row and select the transfer transaction type and other bank account. Confirm the corresponding movement without creating another transfer. Retain both statement references.

4. Reconcile Each Bank and Card Account

Open All apps, Accounting, then Reconcile. Select the account and compare the previous statement ending date and beginning balance with your records. Enter the statement’s ending balance and ending date, then start reconciling.

Tick only transactions supported by that statement. Finish when Difference is $0.00 and the cleared transactions explain the statement movement. Correct a mistyped statement input against the original. Investigate an unexplained difference instead of forcing it to zero.

QuickBooks saves a reconciliation report after completion. Open History by account on the Reconcile page and retain the report with the statement. Intuit’s Australian reconciliation procedure covers this sequence.

5. Check Outstanding Customer and Supplier Balances

Run accounts receivable and accounts payable ageing reports at the period end where the edition supports them. Compare unpaid invoices and bills with customer records and supplier statements. Investigate unapplied payments, disputed amounts and old credits.

The detailed customer and supplier totals must agree with their respective ledger control accounts on the same basis and date. Document genuine timing differences with supporting references. A zero bank-reconciliation difference leaves these checks outstanding until you complete them.

Resolve Bookkeeping Exceptions

Investigate the source of an exception before changing an entry. Keep its original reference and explain the correction so the reviewer can follow it.

6. Correct or Escalate Each Exception

Exception	First diagnostic check	Corrective action
Receipt has no suggested match	Search existing entries by amount, supplier and payment account, with a wider date range	Match the supported entry. Create an expense or bill only after confirming none exists
Bank line appears twice	Compare the statement with downloaded and imported records	Exclude only the extra downloaded copy after identifying the genuine entry. If already posted, inspect its link, use Undo on the mistaken bank posting and return it for matching or exclusion
Entry uses the wrong account or GST code	Compare the source invoice, business use and approved account mapping	For an open period, correct the entry after confirming treatment. Rerun the affected reports and retain the reason
Beginning balance differs from the prior reconciliation	Check the selected account and prior report, then the discrepancy report and audit history	Identify the changed, deleted or unreconciled entry. Obtain the responsible reviewer’s decision before repairing prior-period records

Intuit’s beginning-balance diagnostics show how to inspect the discrepancy report. Record the difference and the changes that explain it. Do not replace an accepted opening balance just to remove an alert.

If a correction affects a completed or lodged period, stop before editing it. Give the responsible agent the original transaction, affected period, proposed treatment and tax impact. The ATO permits correction of GST errors on a later BAS only when its conditions are met. Credit and debit errors have different conditions, and some errors require revision of the earlier BAS.

The agent decides the reporting route. Retain that decision and the resulting correction reference. Then repeat the affected reconciliation or report comparison.

Review and Hand Over the Period

The period is ready for acceptance when the balances have supporting evidence and the reviewer has decided the remaining accounting questions. Marking a preparation task complete records a workflow event. Record the reviewer’s acceptance separately.

7. Review the Reports and Record the Decision

Run the trial balance, profit and loss and balance sheet for the agreed period and basis. Compare the bank balances with saved reconciliations and the receivable and payable totals with the reviewed detail.

Inspect unusual income or expense movements, unexpected debit or credit balances, suspense accounts and unsupported journals. Trace each concern to its source. Assign unresolved questions to a named role with a required decision and follow-up date.

Use a handover note with these fields:

• Entity, period and reporting basis.
• Each completed reconciliation and its report and statement links.
• Corrections made, their reasons and any prior-period decisions.
• Open questions, responsible roles and the reports affected.
• Source-document location, preparer and reviewer.
• Acceptance decision and any work expressly excluded from it.

Confirm who supplies next period’s documents, enters transactions and answers review questions. Retain accessible reports before responsibility or access changes. If the next task is a BAS, use the separate BAS preparation checklist for its review and authorisation.

Check the Client’s QuickBooks Chart

Review the QuickBooks chart of accounts when coding exposes a missing or unsuitable account. Importing a replacement chart is a separate authorised change, not a routine period-close step.

8. Import Only an Approved Account Mapping

Map proposed accounts to QuickBooks account types and detail types before importing. Check their intended GST treatment separately. Preserve the existing bank, receivable, payable and GST control accounts, with the accepted opening totals.

Intuit’s chart-import procedure uses Settings, Import data, then Chart of Accounts. Upload the spreadsheet and map its fields. The columns are Account Name, Type and Detail Type, with Number optional.

Check names and subaccounts against the existing list to avoid duplicates. Review account and detail types, correct flagged fields and untick accounts you do not want to import before accepting.

Compare the resulting account list with the approved mapping. Check the tax settings on the relevant entries and confirm the trial balance still agrees with the accepted totals. An account-list import does not justify entering the same opening balances again. Return any unexplained difference for review before using the changed chart.