When recording this invoice you would use the GST/HST paid on purchases account nbr for all of the GST amounts above which is 344.28 + .50. Then record the 1.00 in your QST account nbr and the Advance of 10.00 would be an expense to either the same account nbr as the item purchased or one called something like Brokerage Fees.

You should also show in description column the original vendor name the goods was imported from along with the invoice nbr and date.

Thank-you for the reply Smithco BUT, you just completely lost me here.

When you say recording this invoice, do you mean recording it under the shipping company (ex: FedEx) or on the invoice of the company I actually purchased the goods from?

Excuse me if this sounds again like a silly question but like I said, your answer confused me more than I already was.

Please advise.

Cheers,

Marc

No problem at all - I did mean posting in A/P Purchase module under vendor name of FedEx - hence why I suggested you enter in the decscription column the original vendor name, inv nbr, and date the product came from so that if any questions you know which vendor this particular invoice references to.

Your account nbr 2115 Import Duty Clearing is not needed for this invoice since there is no duty paid. See below for an idea of the definition of Import Duty as per Wikipedia:

Canadian import duties is the amount of tax or tariff paid while importing goods into Canada. The Canada Border Services Agency collects the tariff on all imported goods.[1]

According to the North American Free Trade Agreement, there is no duty to be paid if the goods are for personal use and "the goods are marked as made in the United States, Canada or Mexico, or the goods are not marked or labelled to indicate that they were made anywhere other than in the United States, Canada or Mexico."[2]

Canadians also have to pay the federal goods and services tax and in most provinces provincial sales tax on the imported goods.

OK BUT, if I record it under FedEx as you say, the fist amount which is $344.28 is the GST I paid on importing the goods into Canada.

I cannot put a tax code when entering that amount as this would add 5% to that amount (i.e.: tax on tax). Not to mention that the total ($344.28 + 5%) would be totally inacurate.

This results in the GST paid ($344.28) not appearing in my taxes paid and collected total when I run my quarterly tax remittance report.

Therein lies my problem.

Further to previous answer, if I record information in the following way, does this make sense?

Go into Vendors and purchases, select payments, pay expense

Choose customs broker who invoiced me (ex: FedEx) - Payment method: Pay Later

1st line I do the following:

- select acct# 2115 (Import duty and clearing)

- Put in description and amount charged for duty (if any)

2nd line:

- Select acct# 2325 GST/HST adjustments (sales tax payable)

- Enter description and amount

3rd line: For provincial Sales tax I select acct# 2355 QST adjustments in my case

- Entewr description and amount

and then process the transaction

Because I used GST/HST and PST payable accounts in my 2nd and 3rd line, the amounts "should" be recorded in the proper tax paid accounts and should appear on my tax remittance accounts, correct?

Please confirm.

Cheers,

Marc

When you enter the amount of 344.28 you would not enter any tax code (just leave tax column blank) and  in the Account column enter the GST Paid on Purchases account nbr. You can put the 10.00 in with the tax code so that it does calculate the taxes on that amount.

Let me know if you are not sure what I mean and I will see if I can do a screen shot for you to look at.

A print screen may actually help. Than-you for offering. However, could it be that what you are saying and what I described above is the same?

Forgot to mention that in all cases, I put no tax. However, because I selected the GST and QST adjustments accounts on the lines where I put an amount, these are properly recorded and appear when I run my quarterly remittance report, no?

Sorry - I selected A/P Purchase module, select payment method as 'Pay Later', select vendor name as FedEx along with invoice number/invoice date, and entered my information there. Then I go into payments and make out a cheque to Feb Ex as a 'Pay Purchase Invoices'.

Or you can go into Purchase module and select Payment Method to by cheque or ?? and still enter all the required information.

Comes to the same as what I described above, no?

It may - give it a try. However are you claiming the QST back? I'm not in Quebec but in general the PST (provincial sales tax) is part of the cost of the item and not claimable.

I'm going to send a screen shot.

I am trying it and will compare Sage results with manual report I'm doing in Excel right now. Hopefully they will match.

In Quebec, when you do your Quarterly tax report, you deduct GST and QST paid from what you collected. Depending on the result, you pay the govt what you owe (both taxes) or submit a claim. The claim can be for both taxes, yes

Hey Marc:

I am jumping in here. We do this type of invoice all the time. We have set a recurring entry in our vendor in the AP module.

From the example below, I used your amount for GST Canada, it has it's own line and I do not assign any taxes to that amount and I link it to the GST paid on purchases, this way it will go into that account so you can claim as ITC. I set up a second line for the Clearing fee of $10, you can assign the appropriate tax code to that line. (In this case tax is only 12%, but you get the idea). 

If you view your journal entry, under report menu, that may give you a clearer picture.

I hope this helps.

Cathy

ok - so I finally figured out how to paste screen shot. The secondary box is the Journal Entry display to show how the GST is calculated. In this case we use the GST Paid on Purchases account nbr and not the GST adjustment account nbr. Also since I am not claiming the PST back it is showing as an expense. But since you are claiming the QST back then you should just enter Gst only tax code and then another line for the QST amount against the QST account nbr.

Hope this explains it? Let me know.

It does yes and the after trying theway I described it also works. Just need to put it in the right account (2315 GST/HST paid on purchase instead of 2325 GST/HST adjustments.

Thanks for all the help. Greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Marc

I have the same situation as Marc does. However, if I enter Gst charged on imported goods without a tax code, the tax report won't show those GST amount. Therefore, the gst paid on purchase amount is greater than the tax report amount. Is this normal like this?

For example, the gst paid on imported goods is $100, I have the Gst paid on purchase account $100,but tax report will show $0 Gst paid on purchase.

Thank you for your help.

Hello MTLFALL,

It shows on my report. I do the following steps:

- Reports /Financials/Transactions by accounts

- Enter the dates for the period covered and select

1. GST/HST charged on sales (Acct# 2310)

2. GST/HST paid on purchase (Acct# 2315)

3. QST Charged on sales (Acct# 2340)

4. QST Paid on purchase (Acct# 2345)

- Hit OK

Last amount reported in the balance column indicates what you paid and charged in each category. Substract what you paid from what you charged and voilà.

When recording GST paid on imported goods, I put Acct# 2315 and no tax code. For advanced clearance fees, I use acct# 5180, put in the amount and GQ (GST and QST) in the tax column.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Marc

Personally I never use the Tax report because if you fail to use a tax code at any time, it doesn't show and if you post something in a previous period, it will not show either.

This is how I have always done the entry.  On the second line use Ctrl-Y to add the tax amount of $100.  The tax report detail section is below if you really need to use it.  Use an appropriate description for what you want to see in the future to explain the tax.

Hi Marc,

Thank you for your reply. I was confused by the inconsistency between the amount on  Gst paid on purchase account and the tax report amount. The method you provided works fine, but as long as you dont put a tax code on the Gst paid on imported goods, you wont be able to see this amount on tax report.

I have tried Richard's method also, it worked fine. Now the 2315 Gst paid on purchase account is consistent with the tax report amount!

Problem solved! Thank you guys!

Mina

Hi Richard,

Interesting. Thank you for your reply because you "may" just have enabled me to find a HUGE discrepancy in my financials.

I used FedEx for all of my shipments. This represents the bulk of my expenses. I went trait to Payment and entered the FedEx invoices as an expense. Thing is, by doing this, I have no control over the ta amount as you know I'm sure.

After reading your reply, I created a spreadsheet and I'm entering all of my expenses with a special focus on both imports and shipping expenses. The difference between what I have in my spreadsheet vs the financial report is staggering. The SAGE report shows a LOT less than what I actually paid!!!

Guess I'll have to void all the invoices I entered and recreate them...

Question though, when comes time to remit the taxes at the end of the quarter, how do you go about getting the totals of what you paid versus what you collected. Please do not tell me this needs to be done manually, does it?

MarcDu said:

Question though, when comes time to remit the taxes at the end of the quarter, how do you go about getting the totals of what you paid versus what you collected. Please do not tell me this needs to be done manually, does it?

MTLFALL took this off forum and sent me a private message.  This is what I sent back.

Richard S. Ridings said:

I always print the Balance Sheet as of period end to see the totals and to post the purchase invoice from.

I print the General Ledger reports (Transaction by Account) for the GST Accounts for the full period.

I print the Income Statement for the period for the Total Revenue.

I keep all reports with the working copy of the remittance form.

When I post, I create a purchase invoice as a recurring entry.  Vendor is Receiver General - GST.  Date is the last day of the period.  The accounts are the GST accounts and I enter the dollar amounts as I see them on the Balance Sheet (positive and negative as they appear).

For the invoice number for the period ending Sep/14, I use Jul-Sep/14 so I can see at a glance in my Vendor Aged Detail reports which period the entry is for.  I date the entry Sep 30/14 so the General Ledger reports for the next perod start at zero again.  When it is paid, I post the payment in the Payments module on the date of the payment.

Should have been "For the invoice number for the quarterly period ending Sep/14..."

I don't know why your numbers are off.  It also depends on if you are using the Duty part of the program to add the charges to the inventory as landed cost as well.  Before you start voiding, I would take a break and go back and look at the journal entries again and trace them to make sure they really are incorrect.  I just checked using Make Other Payment which I assume is what you mean when you said

MarcDu said:

...I went trait to Payment and entered the FedEx invoices as an expense. Thing is, by doing this, I have no control over the ta amount as you know I'm sure. (sic)

And I got the same journal entry by doing the same thing.  I never use Make Other Payment, but it looks like it works the same to me.

Without seeing your entries, I can't tell you what might be wrong, but don't forget the GST paid is not an expense (5000 account), it is a liability (2000 account), so please check the original journal entries in the program against your data entry in the spreadsheet to make sure you have the same thing in both places marked as expenses.

And I should have mentioned that you can always use the File, Import/Export, Electronic Filing, GST/HST Online Filing option.  You do not have to go ahead and actually file it online that way, but you can get the GST34 report printed and I believe post the entry as well.

This option will pull the data from the General Ledger reports, not the Tax report.

Richard - your method of processing remittances is exactly what I do too - clients complain about the amount of paper used but it is done anyway - there is no shortcut taken and is invaluable for CRA audits to back up what you have done. This is how everyone should be documenting ALL their remittances - whether for GST/HST, PST, QST, Source Deductions, and WCB (or WSIB).

Hi Richard,

First off, my apologies for the typos in my previous reply. My keyboard is dying on me...

Here's a print screen of how I enter my expenses. Be it FedEx, car lease, cell phone or others

As I indicated in my previous reply, when entering expenses this way, there's no way for me to have control over the tax amount as it is calculated automatically

If you don't see much of a difference in your reports, guess there's something else I am doing wrong here. Any pointers?