Purchasing clients

Mike,

I'm not quite sure what you are asking here. Are you wanting to enter the cost of the client in terms of an expense for that particular customer:job? I'm assuming that you will be paying the broker with a check or credit card which you will enter into QuickBooks. I would think it would be a matter of choosing an expense account and filling in a customer:job on that check or credit card entry. Please let me know if I'm going down the wrong path.

Sincerely,

Jessi

You are correct, I cut a check to the "broker" for this particular client and I am assuming that I can write off the expense against the revenue that I will earn for this client. I don't know how to technically file the expense. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks,

If you were to select an expense account and designate the customer:job in the given column on the check, the expense would show up on a Profit and Loss report. On a Profit and Loss by Job report you would see the expense as being directly related to that particular customer:job. On a Profit and Loss standard report it would just show up in the designated expense account. Otherwise if you just want to see it in a more generic way on the Profit and Loss Standard and you don't care about seeing the expense on a P&L by class, you would just choose the expense account and not select a particular customer:job. To do this go to the Banking menu and choose Write Checks. Choose the appropriate bank account, put the Broker name in as the payee, put the amount in, and at the bottom of the window there is an expense tab where you will see the columns for expense account and customer:job. I hope this is what you were looking for.

Sincerely,

Jessi

Mike,

What resources did you use to find a broker to purchase clients? I too am fairly new to this and looking for ways to obtain new clients.

Thanks

Sorry to be so late but you may have been mislead. The purchase of a "client" is a goodwill intangible under Sec. 197. You now have the right to service and charge that client, so 197 is involved, and that is a 15 year straight line amortization.

About five years ago I bought a book of clients. I treated them all as an asset. And I am amort them under sect 195, intanagable assets.

Sec 195 is for start-up or pre-opening expenses, amortizable over 5 years. Sec 197 is for intangibles.