Credit Cards

Overview

Note: Help content (except videos) has been updated to reflect the UI/UX changes in BQE CORE.

When you use credit cards, you have several options for tracking and paying those bills. You can treat the credit card bill as a vendor and enter the bill when it arrives. Or you can treat it as a liability and track each transaction against the account as it occurs. When the actual bills arrive, you can match the transactions against them and decide about the payments. This way, your running balance is tracked against the credit card instead of your A/P balance.

The Credit Cards screen allows you to manage the liabilities associated with a credit card account. You can record a purchase (charge) or issue a refund (credit). If you enter items in this screen, they become records associated with a specific project. Therefore, to avoid duplication, you are informed if the Purchased From contact already has items waiting to be paid. You can also view historical charges here as well as memorize them to become part of your recurring transactions for streamlined replication. Click to watch this video on entering credit card charges in BQE CORE. 

In a credit card transaction, the payee is often different from the vendor. For example, the payee for an airline ticket purchased through a credit card can be a travel agency while the vendor is the credit card company. This is different from a check where the payee and vendor are always the same.

You need to post the credit card transactions and expenses against appropriate accounts in BQE CORE. If the transaction is for service and expense items, you have to specify those items. If you have specified the income and expense accounts in the Activity Items and Expense Items screens, CORE records the transactions against those accounts. If there is a credit card refund against expense or time entries, CORE makes the cost of these entries negative; in case of time entries, the bill rate is also made negative. From the accounting view, entering credit card charges debits and increases your expense account; on the other hand credits and increases your credit card A/P account.

You can pay your credit card bills via checks payable to your credit card company. Paying the credit card bills debits and decreases your credit card account; on the other hand credits and decreases your bank account.

Field Descriptions

How To

Add Credit Card Charges

Add Credit Card Refunds

Edit Credit Card Transactions

Add Documents

Add Custom Fields

View Journal

Clone Credit Card Transactions

Show/Hide Columns in Grid

Export Credit Card Charges

Apply Filters

Mark Screen as Favorite

Field Descriptions

Add Credit Card Charges

To add a new credit card charge or purchase, watch this video or follow these steps:

1. Open the Credit Cards screen from the side menu > Accounting > Payables.
   
   
   
   

2. Click Add Credit Card.

3. On the Add Credit Card Charge screen, enter the required information. Check Field Descriptions above for details.

   • Credit Card

   • Purchased From

   • Type: Credit card transactions can be of two types:
     - Purchase/Charge
     - Refund/Credit

   • Date (of charge)

   • Reference No.

   
   
   
   
4. Click the Items sub-tab to specify the service or expense items and projects for which the charge is being recorded. Alternatively, you can click the Accounts sub-tab if you want to post directly the accounts involved in the credit card transaction. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
   
   Note: For A/R accounts, you must specify a project. For A/P, you must select a vendor or an employee.
5. Click Done and then Save & Done or Save & Add Another.

Note: Expenses are referred to as costs in the legal industry.

The charge amount is not entered directly by you. CORE uses the sum total of accounts and Items lines to calculate this total amount for the transaction.

Add Credit Card Refunds

A credit refund transaction makes a negative expense entry in CORE and, therefore, credits the associated project.

To add a new credit or refund transaction:

1. Open the Credit Cards screen from the side menu > Accounting > Payables.
   
   
   
   

2. Click Add Credit Card.

3. On the Add Credit Card Refund screen, enter the required information. Check Field Descriptions above for details.

   • Credit Card

   • Purchased From (person being refunded)

   • Type: Credit card transactions in this case will be: Refund/Credit.

   • Date (of refund)

   • Reference No.

   
   
   
   
4. Click the Items sub-tab to specify the service or expense items and projects for which the refund is being recorded. Alternatively, you can click the Accounts sub-tab if you want to post directly the accounts involved in the refund transaction. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
5. Click Done and then Save & Done or Save & Add Another.

The refund amount is not entered directly by you. CORE uses the sum total of accounts and Items lines to calculate this total amount for the transaction.

Edit Credit Card Transactions

You can view, enter and edit credit card details in the detail view. However, you cannot delete credit card transactions that have billed entries associated with them.

To edit a credit card transaction:

1. Open the Credit Cards screen from the side menu > Accounting > Payables.
   
   
   
   
2. Select a transaction on the grid and click  to select View Details.
3. On the Edit Credit Card Charge > General screen, enter details or make changes, as needed.
   
   
   
   
4. Click Delete on a row to remove the line item, if needed.

5. Click Save & Done.

Add Documents

To add a document to a credit card:

1. Open the Credit Cards screen from the side menu > Accounting > Payables.
   
   
   
   

2. In the list view, select a credit card record on the grid and click  to select View Details.

3. In the detail view, go to the Documents tab and click Add.
   
   
   
   

4. On the Add Documents dialog, select the relevant tab, depending on the type of attachment.

   • Computer: To attach files stored on your computer, enter its Description and drag your file or click to browse to that location.

   • Hyperlink: To attach an external link, enter its Description and then insert the hyperlink.

   • Dropbox: To link files stored in your Dropbox account, enter its Description and then browse for it.

   • Google Drive: To link files stored in your Google Drive account, enter its Description and then browse for it.

   • OneDrive: To link files stored in your Microsoft OneDrive account, enter its Description and then browse for it.

   • Box: To link files stored in your Box account, enter its Description and then browse for it.

   • Resource Library: To link company resources, select the resource from the library. This option is available only with CORE CRM.

5. Click Add.

CORE pre-fills some of the information about the attached documents in the grid. You can send the documents to your clients, employees or other contacts for getting their digital or electronic signatures (eSignature via DocuSign) using the eSign option from the row-action menu. CORE automatically adds the signed documents to the Documents folder of the entity (record) as separate attachments. It displays the status of the document, whether it has been delivered via DocuSign, viewed by the recipients, declined or completed by the recipients, etc. This column does not show up if you are not connected via the DocuSign integration. You can also check the detailed video on managing documents in CORE.

Add Custom Fields

Using the custom fields, you can track extra characteristics and attributes of your credit cards. For example, you might track credit card company specialization or credit history to match your company's needs. You can customize these fields in the Custom Labels screen.

To add a custom field, watch this video or follow these steps:

1. Open the Credit Cards screen from the side menu > Accounting > Payables.

2. In the list view, select a credit card record on the grid and click  to select View Details.

3. On the Edit Credit Card screen, go to the Custom Fields tab.
   
   
   
   

4. Click Add Custom Field and select the type of field you want depending on the purpose, say Text Box.

5. On the Add Text Box dialog, enter the required information:

   • Name

   • Type

   • # of Characters

6. Check Show in List View if you want this field to appear under the Show/Hide Columns list and show up on the grid. Click Save.

Note: You can display a maximum of three custom fields on the list view per screen.

You can also check the detailed video on managing custom fields in CORE.

View Journal

You can understand the accounting behind a transaction by looking at its journal entries. In CORE, you can open the Journal report to view the transaction details, including the accounts being credited or debited.

To view a journal of a credit card transaction, watch this video or follow these steps:

1. Open the Credit Cards screen from the side menu > Accounting > Payables.
   
   
   
   
2. Select a transaction on the grid and click  to select View Journal. The journal opens in the viewer.
3. Preview the journal and then choose to export or print it.

Clone Credit Card Transactions

You can copy credit card charges and refunds to create new similar ones. This saves time and effort in creating new credit card transactions from scratch as most of the information is already filled in. You can later edit these cloned transactions to make changes, as required.

To clone a credit card transaction:

1. Open the Credit Cards screen from the side menu > Accounting > Payables.
   
   
   
   

2. Select the relevant Account at the top and then a transaction on the grid that you want to copy. Click  to select Clone.

3. On the Add Credit Card Charge screen, you can see the information pre-filled for the new transaction.
   
   
   
   

4. Enter any missing information or make changes, as needed.

5. Click Save & Done.

Show/Hide Columns in Grid

You can configure the fields or columns that appear on the grid in the list view. You can hide or show columns and sort the order of columns according to your requirements.

To do so, watch this video or follow these steps:

1. Open the Credit Cards screen from the side menu > Accounting > Payables.
   
   
   
   
2. In the list view, click More > Show/Hide Columns on the action bar.
3. Select or un-select the column names in the drop-down list, say Type.
4. Next, click the column name you want to sort the data by, say Purchased from.
5. Click once for ascending order (A-Z) and twice for descending order (Z-A).

Note: You can resize the column widths on the grid and then reset them, if needed (More > Reset Column Widths).

You can also check the detailed video on navigation and customizing grids in CORE.

Export Credit Card Charges

In CORE, you can export credit card transactions to the Comma Separated Values file format. CORE exports data from all available columns and not just the columns visible in the grid.

To export the credit card transactions to a .CSV file, watch this video or follow these steps:

1. Open the Credit Cards screen from the side menu > Accounting > Payables.
   
   
   
   

2. In the list view, click More > Export as CSV.

3. A .csv export file is created and saved on your system at the default download location, say your desktop. Click to open the spreadsheet.

You can also check the detailed video on exporting data in CORE.

Apply Filters

To view selective data on the grid, watch this video or follow these steps:

1. Open the Credit Cards screen from the side menu > Accounting > Payables.
   
   
   
   

2. In the list view, click  on the right.

3. On the Filters panel, select a filter from the drop-down and specify individual records or range.

4. Click Add Filters to specify more filters.

5. When you have finished, click Apply Filter. You can see selective data now.

6. Next, to save the applied filters as your favorite, click Save Filters.
   
   
   
7. It opens the Save Filter dialog, where you can select a name for your filter combination and then click Save. You can also update your existing saved filters by clicking the Update Saved Filters link.
8. In the list view, you can remove the individual filters by clicking  on each. To use your favorite filter or disable applied filters temporarily or remove all filters, click next to the Filters icon and select Disable Filters or Clear All, respectively.  

You can also check the detailed video on applying filters in CORE.

Mark Screen as Favorite

You can mark or flag the most-often used and important screens in CORE as your favorites up to a maximum of ten. These favorite screens then display separately on the side menu under the Favorites list. You can manage all your favorite screens in CORE from User Settings.

To mark this screen as your favorite, watch this video or follow these steps:

1. Open the Credit Cards screen from the side menu > Accounting > Payables.
   
   
   
   

2. In the list view, click  on the top-right.

3. You can access this screen from the side menu under Favorites.

You can also check the detailed video on marking screens as favorite in CORE.