A Miscellaneous Charge Code is a fee you can add to your Customer's invoice. It is used mainly for intangibles that do not have a direct cost. Most commonly, charge codes are used to add ancillary charges to an invoice, such as fuel surcharges and restocking fees.
To learn how to create a new miscellaneous charge code, see Set up miscellaneous charges.
Use a miscellaneous charge code on a sales order
- Go to Sales > Order > Sales Order > Final Tab to add a new charge.
- Click inside the Misc Charge field to choose a code and amount.
- Determine whether to exclude the code from sales tax.
- A positive value will increase the customer balance due and credit the associated G/L account when the invoice is posted.
- A negative value will decrease the customer balance due and debit the associated G/L account when the invoice is posted.
This example shows the addition of a miscellaneous charge code called Labor Charge. The posted invoice shows the code as Labor Charge at the bottom of the invoice. The G/L Distribution indicates a credit to the linked G/L account.
Examples of commonly used charge codes
- Fuel Surcharge: Link to a Revenue G/L account such as Freight Out.
- Restocking Fee: Link to a Revenue account such as Sales or Other Revenue
- After Hours Opening: Link to a Revenue account such as Sales or Other Revenue
- Price Adjustment: Link to a Cost of Sales G/L account such as Customer Price Adjustments.
- Refund: Link the code to a Current Liability account such as Customer Returns & Refunds. This code is useful for generating a refund sales order for a POS transaction in which merchandise is being returned and a check will be mailed out for the refund. Entering the code as a positive dollar amount will offset the negative dollar amount of the returned merchandise, thereby generating a net zero cash tender.
- Returned Check: Link the code to a Current Liability account such as Customer Returns & Refunds. If a POS check is returned the code may be used to generate a negative cash tendered invoice without causing any effect to stock values. Likewise, the replacement payment may be entered into the system using the same code to generate positive cash.
- Returned Check Fee: Link to an Expense account such as Bank Fees.
Avoid using the following G/L accounts
Certain G/L accounts are reserved for system posting and should never be used in conjunction with a Miscellaneous Charge Code. Doing so will erode the ability of the system to maintain integrity between the account balances and supporting sub-ledger records.
- Cash in Bank
- Accounts Receivable
- Inventory
- Accounts Payable
- Sales Tax Payable
- Retained Earnings
- Inter-Branch Exchange (for multi-branch organizations)
- POS Deposit G/L Account