Quickbooks auto-calculates taxes for you when you enter receipts. This is a cool time-saving feature. Where Quickbooks doesn’t do so well with its auto-calculation is when there are tips added to a receipt, such as with meals purchased at a restaurant.

To enter the proper amounts for that restaurant bill into Quickbooks, you need to do one manual calculation.

Let’s take a restaurant receipt as an example.

Entering a Meal Receipt with Tips into Quickbooks

If you pay with a credit or debit card, you usually receive two documents, the restaurant receipt and the credit or debit card receipt. You need both.

In Quickbooks, you need the following information from both receipts.

  1. For the total amount, use the total amount of the meal’s bill plus any tip (1)
  2. For the tax amount, use the total tax amount (2)
  3. For the subtotal, it is (1) – (2) = (3)

If you look at the Quickbooks screen shot, you’ll see where you enter these numbers.

Entering Meal Receipt with Tip into Quickbooks

I hope you found this quick tip (pun intended) useful!