How To Enter Credit Card Charges In QuickBooks Pro

If you have a business credit card, you probably make charges all the time. But how do you enter a credit card charge into QuickBooks Pro?

In this post, we’ll cover the two different ways to enter credit card charges in QuickBooks Desktop Pro so that you can properly manage your business’s finances.

Create A Credit Card Account

Before you can enter credit card charges, you need to make sure that there is an account for your credit card in your chart of accounts. If you’ve read How To Set Up Your QuickBooks Account, you may have already done this. But we’ll go over the process again briefly below.

Begin by going to Lists>Chart of Accounts>Account>New.

Step 1: Select Credit Card

Choose the “Credit Card” option; then click the blue “Continue” button.

Step 2: Enter The Account Name

Enter the name you want associated with your credit card account (i.e. Business Credit Card, Capital One Card, Bank Of America 1234, etc.).

Step 3: Write A Description (Optional)

If you’d like, you can add a description to your credit card account.

Step 4: Enter Your Credit Card Number (Optional)

Type in your credit card number if you want QuickBooks to remember this information.

Step 5: Attach A Tax Line (Optional)

You can attach a tax line to your credit card if you’d like. However, Quickbooks recommends that you leave this field blank unless you are a CPA or tax professional. Read more about tax lines by clicking the blue “How do I choose the right tax line?” link.

Step 6: Input Your Opening Balance (Optional)

You can add an opening balance for your account. You can also select the date of your opening balance using the drop-down calendar.

Step 7: Save Credit Card Account

Click the blue “Save & Close” button to save your credit card account.

Manually Enter Credit Card Charges

To manually enter your credit card charges, go to Banking>Enter Credit Card Charges, or find the “Enter Credit Card Charges” icon on the QuickBooks Pro home screen.

Step 1: Select Your Credit Card

Select the proper credit card for the credit card charge you want to enter (if you only have one credit card, QuickBooks will automatically select that credit card account).

Step 2: Verify Type Of Credit Card Transaction

Take a moment to make sure that “Purchase/Charge” is selected so that your credit card charge is properly recorded.

Step 3: Choose Your Vendor

Select the vendor associated with the credit card charge. You may need to create a new vendor. See our How To Add Vendors In QuickBooks Pro post for assistance.

Step 4: Select The Date

Use the calendar to record the date that the credit card was charged.

Step 5: Add A Reference Number (Optional)

If you have a reference number for the credit card charge, you can enter it now if you’d like.

Step 6: Enter Amount

Enter the credit card charge amount.

Step 7: Add

Include a memo to help you remember what the credit card charge was for.

Step 8: Add Additional Information

Here you can add as much or as little information as you’d like. QuickBooks will automatically put the total amount you entered into the first line. But let’s say, for example, that part of your purchase was office supplies, while part was postage. You could record the information like this:

Or, if you want even more detail, you can enter each item by clicking the “Items” option.

Step 9: Select An Account

No matter how you break up your credit card charge, make sure to use the drop-down menu to select the account in which you want each expense to be categorized.

This will help later when you view your Profit & Loss Statement and when you need to see your tax deductions for the year before filing taxes.

Step 10: Save

Click the “Save & Close” button to record your credit card charge, or click the “Save & New” button if you have more charges to add.

Import Credit Card Charges Using Bank Feeds

If you don’t want to manually enter every credit card charge, you can import your credit card statements. To do this, follow the steps in our How To Enable Live Bank Feeds In QuickBooks Pro post, entering your credit card account rather than your bank account.

If you choose this option, you will still need to manually enter a vendor and select an expense category for each transaction before you reconcile your credit card account.

Whichever method you choose, always be sure to reconcile your credit card account regularly and stay on top of categorizing your credit charge expenses. This makes your life much easier come tax time and allows you to catch any discrepancies before it’s too late.

For troubleshooting issues, check out the QuickBooks Community or call QuickBooks directly. Don’t forget to check out the rest of our QuickBooks Desktop Pro 101 Series to learn how to add a bank account, reconcile a bank account, enter credit card payments, enter a bill, handle merchant fees, and more.

>Overwhelmed by QuickBooks Pro? Maybe it’s time to switch to QuickBooks Online. QBO is easy to use, cloud-based, and affordable. Best of all, you can easily import your QuickBooks Desktop data into QuickBooks Online. Check out our full review on QuickBooks Online for more details.

Outgrown QuickBooks Pro? Switch to QuickBooks Premier. It’s the same QuickBooks Desktop software you love but with more users and advanced, industry-specific features, which we cover in our QuickBooks Premier review.