Enter a QST Refund in Cash-Basis Accounting

If you find that the government owes you a refund:

  1. If you have not already done so, create a customer record for the Ministère du Revenu du Québec.
    1. In the Home window, open Customers and click the Create toolbar button Create button.
    2. In the Customer box, type Ministère du Revenu du Québec.
    3. Click the Taxes tab, set the Tax Exempt status of each tax to Yes. Then click the Save and Close button.
  2. In the Home window, open Sales, Orders, and Quotes, and enter the Ministère du Revenu du Québec as the customer.
  3. Enter an invoice number, such as QST JUL for the July QST refund, and enter the date.
  4. Enter the amounts and account numbers for all QST accounts, as follows:
    1. In the Amount box, enter the corrected Refundable QST Paid amount, from the QST report, as a positive number. In the Account box, enter the Refundable QST Paid account number.
    2. On the next line, enter the corrected QST Charged At Rate 1 amount as a negative number, and the QST Charged At Rate 1 account number.
    3. On the next line, enter the corrected QST Charged At Rate 2 amount as a negative number, and the QST Charged At Rate 2 account number.
    4. Similarly, enter the account balances and account numbers listed on the Transactions By Account report for the remaining QST accounts: the QST Adjustments account, the ITR Adjustments account, and the QST Payroll Deductions account (if you have one).

    The invoice total should equal your refund amount, as calculated on the QST Return.

  5. To check the entry, choose Display Sales Transaction Detail from the Report menu. The amount the government owes you should be shown as a debit to the Bank account.
  6. Click Record to record the entry. Note that the amounts remain in the QST accounts until you record payment of the refund.
  7. When you receive the refund cheque, open the Receipts window and create a receipt from the Ministère du Revenu du Québec. This removes from the accounts the QST amounts reported for this QST period, in preparation for a new reporting period.

If you want to check that you have properly cleared the QST accounts:

  1. Create a temporary copy of your company files, and switch to accrual-basis accounting in the temporary copy.
  2. Print a balance sheet. If you cleared the accounts properly, the QST account balances should be zero in the temporary accrual-basis copy of your company files. If the balances are not zero, check the steps you took to adjust the QST report and account for a refund to see where the error occurred.