Utility Bills

How do I enter utility bills?

Goldenseal accounting software makes it easy to pay utility bills, and to allocate them to projects, rental units or overhead expenses.

Account Setup

Goldenseal divides all expenses into 5 basic cost classes (equipment, labor, materials, subcontractors and other). Most people consider utility bills to be an Other Cost, though you can also consider it to be a Material.

To enter a utility provider, follow these steps:

  1. Choose Other Costs from the Accounts menu.
  2. Click the New button.
  3. Enter details about the provider.
  4. Hit the Enter key to save the record.

NOTE-- If you prefer to include utility expenses as material costs, then choose Material Suppliers from the Accounts menu at step 1.

Entering Utility Bills

When you get a utility bill, follow these steps:

  1. Choose Other Costs from the Costs menu.
  2. Click the New button.
  3. Enter the utility provider into the Account field.
  4. Enter the amount into the Amount field.
  5. Enter job cost info (described in the next section).
  6. Click OK.

Job Costing Utility Expenses

The way you'll fill in the Job Class and Job fields for your utility bills depends on how the utilities are used.

If the utilities are used directly on a project, enter Project into the Job Class field, and enter a project into the Job field.

If the utilities are used in a rental unit or a rental property, enter Real Estate into the Job Class field, and enter a property into the Job field.

If you can't assign the utility expense to a specific project or property, enter Overhead into the Job Class field, and enter an overhead account into the Job field.

Billing Customers for Utilities

If you are doing a project on a time & materials basis, Goldenseal will automatically include any utility bills in the project T&M billing. Just make sure you enter the project into the job costing part of the Other Cost record, and it will automatically be charged to that job.

Billing Tenants for Utilities

If you pay for utilities and then charge your rental tenants for that cost, follow these steps:

  1. Enter utility bills as described above.
  2. Choose Rental Transactions from the Income menu.
  3. Click the New button.
  4. Enter the property and rental unit where the charge occurs.
  5. Enter the amount that the tenant pays you for the utility.
  6. Enter Other Charge into the Transaction Type popup field.
  7. Enter the method that the tenant will use to pay for the item (or enter Billed if they haven't yet paid for it).
  8. Hit the Enter key to save the record.

Click here to return to expense accounting topics.

Topics | Previous | Next | Getting Started Manual | Reference Manual | Site Map | Website