Setting Up Your Credit Card Register Heading Area:
At the top of each page is a heading area that provides lines for
writing in the Account identifier (name, number, etc), the Year, and the
Credit Limit.
![]() This area should be filled in on each page so that this information is always readily available. Before you proceed however, consider these points:
With that in mind, your could certainly enter the Account identifier on all pages. Usually
a short form of the name is all you need, but if you are tracking
multiple credit cards using several registers and some of the cards are
issued from the same
provider, we suggest that you identify each account with the name and
the last several digits of the account number (typically four) so that
you can easily distinguish one account from the other. Regarding the Year, if it is likely that you will reach the end of the register before the current year ends, or if you intend to
maintain and later file your register away "by year", then enter the current year on each page as
well, otherwise leave this field blank on pages you estimate will be needed for
the next year, and fill in those pages after the New Year rolls in.
Enter the
credit limit only on the starting page for now. Enter it on each subsequent page only when you
begin to use it. For if your credit limit is increased or decreased, your heading
areas will get messy if you had entered your current credit limit on
each page but then had to correct all of your pages to the new credit
limit. (If a credit limit change happens while you are using a page,
that one page will need to be corrected, as seen in the samples on other pages of these instructions, but this procedure keeps that correction to just a single page.) Starting Balances: Note
in the heading area the first row under the Balance and
Available Credit columns. For all but your very first page, this is where you enter
your forwarding balances - that is, the ending balances from the
previous page are entered here as the beginning balances for the new
page. However, when you first start using the credit card register, you
must determine these balances from other sources. This is most easily
achieved by either calling your credit card provider by phone or
accessing your account online. You could also figure out these balances
from your last statement if you have receipts or other records of all
transactions since that statement. Even if you call about or access
your account online, it would help if you have receipts
available at least from the last few days, then when you call about or access your
account you could confirm that these most recent charges have been
posted. Sometimes a vendor may have only charged a pending amount, just
to verify your account. Gas stations often do this. At the moment there
may be pending a small, temporary amount, say for only $1, but you know that
your actual charge was more like $40, and your receipt would clarify the
exact amount. Also, if you happen to be traveling, your hotel and/or car
rental company may have placed a much larger, temporary charge against
your account as a "hold" until your final charges are determined. Also
confirm that your most recent payment has posted to your account. If you
just mailed it a couple of days earlier, it likely has not been
received or posted yet. If that is the case, your starting debt balance will need to be reduced and your starting available credit will need to be increased accordingly (but don't rely on the newly computed available credit balance yet until you are certain
your payment has posted: there is another warning about this later!). Other transactions you must consider are any automatic charges you've pre-authorized to be charged around this time (it would be a good idea to fill out the Automatic Charge schedule located at the beginning of the booklet, or obtain the loose-leaf version if you're using the loose-leaf registers, before you determine your starting balances). Also, if you are carrying a debt balance
month-to-month, how near is your statement closing date? For that is
when the interest is charged and this may have already occurred during
the last several days, so you must take that into account as well. A tip on determining your available credit is to
simply subtract your debt balance from your credit limit. This will give
you the exact amount, as your bank will often cut off the cents
portion in reporting your available credit. And if for some reason you have exceeded your credit limit
(sometimes the interest charge alone will push it over the limit), your
account inquiry will report simply "0" as your available credit. The amount
you need however is the actual amount, even if it is a negative number due to
extending beyond your credit limit ( for example minus 57.95, which would be written as (57.95) ). In summary, when just starting out you need to get out your pencil and scratch paper and determine, using the above approaches and considerations, both your debt balance and available credit with as much accuracy as possible. Enter these amounts as your starting balances, then monitor your account carefully for a few days to confirm that you have accounted for everything. Make adjusting entries promptly in your register if any errors or omissions are discovered. |