Here’s a multicurrency pop quiz:
What asset account on both the QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop Charts of Accounts cannot be set up with a foreign currency, but can be segregated by currency nevertheless?
The answer might surprise you: It is Undeposited Funds (aka Payments to Deposit in some QuickBooks Online company files).
In a multicurrency environment, all Receive Payment and Sales Receipt transactions that don’t deposit directly into a bank account get lumped into one singular Undeposited Funds account.
While this is convenient, it is difficult for us to see how much is sitting in Undeposited Funds awaiting deposit, segregated by currency. And looking at the register for Undeposited Funds will tell you next to nothing because it is all sitting there, unsegregated, and no customization is available that will help. The amounts and balances display in the home currency.
Undeposited Funds Register in QuickBooks Online
Undeposited Funds Register in QuickBooks Desktop
Here’s what QuickBooks (both Online and Desktop) allows you to do: you can go to +New > Make Deposit in QBO or Banking > Make Deposits in Desktop and then, in the drop-down (in the header in QBO and in the Payments to Deposit pop-up window in Desktop), specify the currency whose undeposited funds you want to explore:
Choose Currency for Deposit in QuickBooks Online
Choose Currency for Deposit in QuickBooks Desktop
And then, of course, you would escape out of that deposit transaction, because you are not actually depositing funds; you’re just looking for information. You would have to do that for each currency, and that gets annoying, especially if you’re dealing with a bunch of them.
Here’s a better, MacGyver-esque way: create a report of Undeposited Funds sorted by currency.
Create the report in QuickBooks Online:
1. Start with a Balance Sheet
2. Zoom in on the balance for Undeposited Funds
3. Change the Report period to All Dates
4. Customize the report:
○ Remove the Filter for the Distribution account
○ Add a Filter for Account = Undeposited Funds
○ Add a Filter for Cleared = Uncleared
○ Add columns for:
- Currency
- Foreign Amount (be aware that the Foreign Amount column shows the home currency amount if it’s displaying a home currency transaction)
○ Remove columns for:
- Split
- Amount (we do not need it as we have the Foreign Amount column, and it would be confusing if we kept it for foreign currency transactions)
- Balance
- Revalued Exchange Rate
- Revalued Amount
- Unrealized Gain or Loss
○ Sort by Currency
○ Reposition any columns as necessary
5. Give the report an appropriate title
6. Save customization
I would love to be able to total by currency, but I’m not able to do that in QBO:
Undeposited Funds by Currency Report in QuickBooks Online
If I really wanted to total by currency, I could export to Excel and do some filtering there.
Create the report in QuickBooks Desktop:
The instructions are similar to those for QuickBooks Online; I’m using Accountant Desktop, which displays detailed reports using Debits and Credits, as opposed to Pro or Premier for our clients, which might display an Amount column instead:
1. Start with a Balance Sheet
2. Zoom in on the balance for Undeposited Funds
3. Change the Date range to All
4. Customize the report:
○ Add a Filter for Cleared = No
○ Display columns for:
- Currency
- Foreign Amount
○ Remove columns for:
- Clr
- Adj (if displayed)
- Split
- Debit (if displayed)
- Credit (if displayed)
- Amount (if displayed)
- Balance
○ Sort by Currency
○ Reposition any columns as necessary
5. Give the report an appropriate title
6. Memorize
Undeposited Funds by Currency Report in QuickBooks Desktop
And QuickBooks Desktop allows you to go two steps further, if you want:
- Add a column for Foreign Balance
- Filter the report by currency
Filter the Undeposited Funds Report by Currency in QuickBooks Desktop
This allows you to get a total amount awaiting deposit for each currency, in addition to the individual payments that add up to that total.
Undeposited Funds Report for a Currency (with Total in that Currency) in QuickBooks Desktop
So hypothetically, you could create a different memorized report on Undeposited Funds for each currency (specifying the currency in the title), memorize it, put all of these reports in a special report group, and then run them all simultaneously by selecting Reports > Process Multiple Reports.
I would love it if QBO would improve its report customization options for multicurrency companies, but this option is fine in the meantime.
Esther Friedberg Karp is an internationally-renowned trainer, writer and speaker from Toronto, where she runs her QuickBooks consulting practice, EFK CompuBooks Inc. Consistently in Insightful Accountant's Top 100 ProAdvisors, she has been named to the Top 10 twice.
With the unique distinction of holding ProAdvisor certifications in the US, Canadian, UK, and International versions of QuickBooks, she has traveled the world with Intuit. She has spoken at conferences such as QuickBooks Connect, Scaling New Heights, and Future Forward, and has written countless articles for Intuit Global.
Esther has been named one of the “Top 50 Women in Accounting,” a “Top 10 Influencer” in the Canadian Bookkeeping World, and is a repeat nominee for the “RBC Canadian Women’s Entrepreneur Awards.” She counts among her clients many international companies, as well as accounting professionals seeking her out on behalf of their own clients for her expertise in multi-currency and various countries’ editions of QuickBooks Desktop and Online.
She can be reached at esther@e-compubooks.com or 416-410-0750.
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