QuickBooksForum.com.au

OK, this is the last straw, I am so fed up with this useless program. All I want to do is enter a transaction so I can do a BAS statement. I get this ridiculous error:

"You must specify a tax agency for the tax account."

I searched the forum, checked preferences>tax made sure ATO is the default tax agency, made sure no other suppliers are 'tax agency', still no luck. Then wasted a few hours upgrading everything to Quickbooks 2010/11, still the same lame error.

Anyone know of a good, simple accounting program? Is MYOB an better, or are they all as useless as QuickBooks.

I really am fed up with Quickbooks, it's bad enough having to do IAS and BAS statements, but using QuickBooks to do it is like pulling teeth.

This is your last chance. Come up with a solution to this problem or I am deleting QuickBooks forever and letting everyone I know what a load of crap Quickbooks is. I want my money back. <rant over>

Hi
I was hoping someone had given you an answer, that works,I get around it, by paying liabilities first, changing the amount, then putting taxable on the next line with the correct amount, push ok, and hope for the best, uusually works , but sometimes you get the same problem, so I start again, there must be a better way, when it use to work well in the years before, god know why it was changed
Please if anyone knows the right way to fix it, but nothing I have tried will work

Hi
I have just tried to record payment of my first tax liability since upgrading to QB 10/11 and have received the same message. I had no problems with QB 09/10 and saw no special upgrade instructions. Can someone please explain the cause and the solution? I sympathise with others who change nothing and yet the "upgrade" the pay for ends up producing errors.

ok I have worked around the error message but do not understand why. I saved each of the 3 items making up my BAS tax liability separately. I just recorded "tax payable" and it saved ok, re-opened the cheque and added "provision for income tax" and it saved ok, re-opened the cheque and added "payroll liabilities PAYG tax paid to ATO" and this also saved ok. Go figure.....

This might be a silly question.  For the supplier you use for paying GST, ie. ATO have you indicated that they are a Tax Agency?

If you go into the supplier details, there is a tick box to the right to indicate the Supplier is a Tax Agency.  You should have a 4th tab to fill in regarding the details of your BAS registeration.

We've just paid our first BAS for the period and had no problems at this stage.

Yup, I've got the ATO listed as a Tax Agency. The error persists, and still no response from anyone at QuickBooks, how pathetic.

I'm am changing accounting software to:

http://www.xero.com/

Looks so much easier and better to use.

See ya later QuickBooks

I don't blame you, if I could I would change also.

Have fun with Xero it looks like a great product.

Cheers

Carrie

You might not believe this but I have heard that a problem for upgrading is that many people have their existing tax agency as "ATO".

The 2010/11 version will only work if the tax agency is listed as "The ATO".

I have just downgraded (can't possibly call it upgraded) from Quickbooks 2003.  I have wasted $350 and a hell of a lot of time.  iI cannot see one improvement but there are many places where it is more difficult to do what you want to do.

Daly, that is not quite right.

The tax agency must be the QuickBooks default, which is Australian Taxation Office.

If the user has changed the name to anything other than this (say ATO, or The ATO etc..), or changed their tax agency in the preferences, or paid a tax debt to another supplier (say THE ATO) then an upgrade will cause issues. It is a pretty important step - in fact - it's paramount to a successful upgrade.

In saying that, their have been complaints from old QB users. In fact, I had a customer last week that had written to QBooks management about the many faults of the program (as he saw them), and that it wouldn't do this and wouldn't do that anymore etc...

Reckon asked me to check things out for them, and it was in fact 100% the end users error, or in some cases, the way he was taught to create an entry incorrectly.

I use xero, MYOB and QBooks + others with various bookkeeping clients so I know them all pretty well, and for me, if QuickBooks is set up and operated correctly it is as good as the others. In fact, xero can't be used with most of my clients as it lacks the features of MYOB or QB. It's fine for smaller businesses though.

I would hope you seek an Accredited Partners advice before writing the program off. If you would like me to investigate the errors free of charge I would be more than happy to do so.



Regards,

Jason
www.quickbooksolutions.biz

Well, changing to The ATO fixed my Quickbooks.

I didn't say there were errors, other than the above nonsense, and I don't intend to change to any other program.

I do, however, feel that Quickbooks 2010 is less user friendly than Quickbooks 2003.  If I had known, I would not have spent the money.

Sorry Daly, my response was to the original question and subsequent replies and not your reply directly - I only referred to you re. "The ATO" being the correct agency to use - which is incorrect. Sorry for the confusion.

For other users, please do NOT use The ATO or any other variation other than the default. This may "appear" to be working correctly, however as the Australian Taxation Office both in the PREFERENCES and the SUPPLIERS list as the default tax agency, using another variation will distort the balance in the suppliers list and / or taxation reports.

This needs to be addressed prior to upgrading from 2007/08 or prior to 2008/09 and above. However, it can be fixed in retrospect - there is a KB article in the Quicken knowledge browser. See http://www.quicken.com.au/kb/issue_view.asp?ID=329

It is quite complex but WILL fix the error if not caught prior to upgrade. I hope this helps anyone in the future.


Regards,

Jason
www.quickbooksolutions.com.au



 

You are perfectly correct Jason.

Somehow, The ATO as a title worked for the December BAS for me.
It won't work for the March one though.

I have tried working through the fix that you linked to but no success so far. 

I am not far off abandoning Accounting Software altogether and getting a nice big ledger book and doing things manually.  For my small business, I am sure it would actually save time in the long run.

I have been sent the 2011/12 discs.  Would an upgrade now help or would it make repairing the problem even worse?

I've just installed QuickBooks Plus 2012/13 and was having the same problem.  I just received the following advice, which worked.

To pay tax, click on Suppliers, Tax Activities, Pay Tax.
This brings up the write cheques window with Tax Payable as a line. Click on the Tax Payable line, then click Edit, Delete Line.  Re-enter the Tax Payable line, then a Payroll Liabilities line (or whatever item you need to enter). Click save.  This worked for me.