QuickBooks 2011: The Missing Manual

Chapter 11. Producing Statements

Statements are the perfect solution for businesses that charge for time and other services in bits and pieces, such as law offices, wireless telephone service providers, or astrology advisors. Statements can summarize the statement charges racked up during the statement period (usually a month), but they’re also great for showing payments and outstanding balances, the way your cable bill shows the charges for your monthly service, the Pay-Per-View movies you ordered, your last payment, and your current balance. So even if you invoice your customers, you can send statements to show them their previous balances, payments received, new charges, and overdue invoices. (To learn about the limitations of statements, see Choosing the Right Type of Form.)

In this chapter, you’ll find out how to produce statements, whether you accumulate charges over time or simply summarize your customers’ account status.

Generating Statements

Think of a statement as a report of all the charges and payments during the statement period that you then send to your customer. A statement’s previous balance, charges, and customer payments all depend on the dates you choose for the statement. Businesses typically send statements out once a month, but you can generate them for any time period you want.

Note

To work with statements and statement charges, you have to turn on the statements preference. Choose Edit→Preferences→Desktop View and then click the Company Preferences tab. Turn ...