i have been using quickbooks for some time now and i have one major problem. please help! i have a client trust account set up with each client having their own subaccount. whenever a client deposits money into the trust account, i put it in their subaccount as well as whenever i write a check it comes from their subaccount.
my problem: when i send these people a monthly statement, showing how much their bill is, i have to hand write the amount of money they have in the trust account, subtract out any filing fees or expenses that i have used out of their trust account, minus the fees earned for the month which leaves them with the balance in the trust account-or tells them how much they owe; whatever the case may be.
people are complaining about their bill because they want to be able to see everything spelled out for them. i suppose i could send them a copy of their trust subaccount activity but i am assuming their has to be a better way. thanks for any help anyone can give me.

I do not believe that there is anything in QuickBooks to do the customize billing that you need. Perhaps, someone else knows of something. We can help by offering to customize one of our billing programs to do what you need. Email me to discuss it.

jchar@qbTeK.com
www.qbTeK.com (QB Conversions, Programming, Services)

thanks for responding so quickly. there has to be a way to do what i want to do. i know lots of law firms use quick books and i cant believe that people would be doing what i am doing. i have a stamp that says:
retainer balance_______________
filing fees paid_______________
expenses paid__________________
fees earned____________________
remaining retainer balance_____

to do this for all the people that have money in escrow, it takes a lot of time, not to mention that the people do not see what and who the checks were actually written to and for. they just see the amount that i put in filing fees paid.

i would like not to have to print out their client trust report along with their monthly bill. i do not have the smartest of clients and i think this would confuse them greatly.

i do know if this makes a difference or not but i am doing statements and not invoices. the reason for this is the attorneys just keep track of their time whenever it happens. they do not alphabatize their work so i use the enter statement charges.

i talked to someone once who told me to do it as an estimate. that was the only info he gave me so when i tried that i got nowhere.

please, any help would be greatly appreciated.

mstanya

Although I see and understand the fields that you want on your statement I do not know how or where in QuickBooks this data is taken from.

As you already found out, a QuickBooks Statement is just a list of invoices and payments for the period. It does not do these types of calculations.

I believe you will need a customize billing program to do this. We have done these before. Please email me to discuss it.

jchar@qbTeK.com
www.qbTeK.com (QB Conversions, Programming, Services)

Why don't you just print out a copy of the subaccount's register for them? Then they can see their balance as well as what charges have been incurred.

kathy-
is that what you do? do you do the bills for a lawyer? i could do this but i do not have the smartest of clients and at the time that i print the bills, i have not written the check for fees earned, which would then lower their trust balance. i think that would open up a whole new can of worms. i would still have to manually subtract the fees earned for the month.
how did you solve this problem?
thanks for responding!
tanya