I am starting up my own consulting business. Im not an idiot, but am having trouble with a couple of Quickbooks issues. I know very little about accounting, but I do have a degree in electrical engineering so I really am not an imbecile.First, to keep track of business expenses for tax purposes related to my new consulting business, I am trying to input all the expenses I have already paid (laptop, software, paper, printer, postage, legal paperwork, etc.) to have Quickbooks keep track of it all. I have already paid for these expenses using an account that is not related to my business bank account (just set up my business bank account, so it wasnt even in existence when I paid for these earlier expenses). When I try to input all these items into Quickbooks, it insists that I need pay them - but theyve already been paid. How do I input them just for record keeping purposes only.Also, some of my expenses (postage, photocopy/binding) are going to be passed through to my customers at a 30% markup. How do I get Quickbooks to do that?Thank you!.--Answer1:You can do a General Journal Entry for expenses all ready paid as follows:Debit all you expensesCredit an Equity Account called Owners Contribution in the same amount as the total of all your expenses.As far as the second question, are you going to be able to exactly attribute these expenses to a particular customer and job or are they part of your overhead?If the former, then set up items for each of the expenses you are going to pass to your customer. These items will be of the type "other charges" and you will assign them to an Income account. Do not assign an amount to the item. When you enter on your invoice, enter the exact amount of the expense*1.3 to get the amount billed to your customer.I hope this helps. email me at natejack2@hotmail.com if you want to discuss further. I enjoy talking about QB issues.