How Does FlexBooks Handle Sales Tax?

FlexBooks brings the sales tax you charge in Mindbody into QuickBooks for you. This article explains how that works and where the tax goes, and how we can send it to a tax account you already use in QuickBooks.

What you will see

On the day of your first sync, FlexBooks looks in QuickBooks for a sales tax code with the same name as your sales tax in Mindbody. If there isn't one, FlexBooks creates it, at the rate you charge in Mindbody, along with a tax agency of the same name. QuickBooks then creates the accounts for that agency on its own.

If you charge one tax called "Sales Tax", you will see a tax called Sales Tax in QuickBooks and an account called Sales Tax Payable - Sales Tax in your Chart of Accounts.

That account fills up only when Mindbody actually charges tax on a sale. If none of your pricing options or products have tax switched on in Mindbody, the account stays at zero and nothing in your books changes.

If you charge more than one tax

Mindbody lets you set up to five sales taxes, each with a name and a rate, and then choose which products and pricing options each one applies to.

FlexBooks treats each of your taxes the same way. If you charge three taxes in Mindbody, you will see three taxes in QuickBooks, each with its own name and rate.

How FlexBooks applies tax to a sale

On every sale, FlexBooks brings over the tax Mindbody charged, line by line. A line Mindbody taxed carries that tax into the matching QuickBooks tax code. A line Mindbody didn't tax goes into QuickBooks untaxed.

Mindbody is where the tax is worked out, so the tax on a FlexBooks sale in QuickBooks is the tax your customer was charged.

How QuickBooks handles sales tax

QuickBooks keeps sales tax in three layers:

1. The tax agency is who you pay.
2. The tax code is what goes on a line of a sale.
3. The tax rate is the percentage inside a tax code.

Each tax code belongs to an agency, and QuickBooks chooses the account from the agency. So FlexBooks never chooses or names the account. Your sales tax reports also list each agency separately, which is why a tax FlexBooks created appears on its own line, apart from a tax agency you already had.

How this looks depends on your country:

• In the United States, most companies use QuickBooks' automatic sales tax, which works out the rate from your business address and keeps its own accounts, usually named after your state's tax agency, plus one called Out Of Scope Agency Payable. Those accounts are separate from the one described above, and QuickBooks manages them itself.
• In Canada, QuickBooks sets up its own tax codes for your province under the Canada Revenue Agency, and those go to GST/HST Payable. The name on a tax code can differ from the name on your reports. For example, the code HST NS 2025 can show on a report as "HST on sales".

Sending your tax to an account you already have

If you already track sales tax in QuickBooks and want your Mindbody sales to go to the same place, email us and we will map your Mindbody tax to the QuickBooks tax code you use. We set this up on our side, so you don't change anything in Mindbody and nothing new is added to QuickBooks.

New sales use your tax code from the next sync. Sales already in QuickBooks stay where they are.

If you would like this from the start, email us before your first taxed sale syncs.

If you'd rather not keep the new account

If nothing has ever posted to it, you can make both the tax and the account inactive in QuickBooks. Email us first so we can map your Mindbody tax to the code you are keeping, or the next taxed sale will create them again.

If the account already holds tax, leave it active and talk to your bookkeeper about where the balance should go. Deleting a tax rate that has been used changes past sales receipts.

Outside the United States

On a sale with both taxed and untaxed lines, FlexBooks puts a zero-rate code called Exempt on the untaxed lines. A sale with no tax on it at all goes to QuickBooks with no tax code. That includes no-charge sales, which Why do I have $0.00 transactions in QuickBooks? explains.

If you are not sure

If you can't tell which account is which, or tax is landing somewhere you don't expect, send us a note before you change anything and we'll look at your setup with you.