Negative A/R Payments Received Report

Hi there, bi_harrington. I know how you can generate a report for customer payments made prior to any sales or services.

Once you start receiving customer payments in advance, you can run a Profit and Loss report using the cash method to see Unapplied cash payment income. 

Thus, you can use the profit and loss report to pull up the Transaction detail report that will show the breakdown of the unapplied payments.

Here's how:

1. Go to the Reports menu.
2. Select Profit & Loss.
3. Double-click the amount for Unapplied Cash Payment Income to open the Transaction report.

After that, you can also personalize the report to make sure it includes the Memo/Description column. I've added this article to learn more about customizing reports: Customise reports in QuickBooks Online.

You can, on the other hand, look at this link for another method of recording the retainer or deposit in QuickBooks Online.

Let me know if you still have other concerns or questions about reports in QuickBooks. I'll be here to check on your response.

Thanks so much, that worked a treat! However, I have added the memo field to the report and it is not showing anything, even though I have clearly added something in the memo field of the prepayments. Can you help?

Thanks for getting back to us, bi.

Allow me to chime in and help ensure you can see the memo on the Transaction Detail report in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

I tried to replicate this on my test account, and I was able to see the memo on the Transaction Detail report. May I know how you record the prepayments? In my case, I used the Received Payment option. Any additional information will help me provide the best resolution for your concern.

Here are the sample screenshots from my test account.

In the meantime, let's sign in to your QBO using a private browser (incognito). There are times that the browser is already full of frequently accessed page resources (cache and cookies) causing some unusual responses.

Here's how:

• Press Ctrl + Shift + N (Google Chrome).
• Ctrl + Shift + P (Firefox).
• Control + Option + P (Safari).
•  Ctrl + Shift + P (Microsoft Edge)

Once logged in, open the report again to double-check. If the memo is now showing, return to your default browser and perform a clear cache to refresh the system. However, if the issue persists, try using other supported browsers.

Once you're ready to apply the prepayment to the invoice, you can refer to this article for the detailed steps on how to do it: Record invoice payments in QuickBooks Online.

Please leave a comment in this thread if you have more questions about this or anything else. I'm more than happy to answer them. Take care.

Thanks for your detailed explanation, which I have followed. However, the memo field still does not display any data.

Here is a transaction from the above report, with data in the memo field. In fact, all of the above have data in the memo field. I have also tried viewing the report in a congnito browser, and it makes no difference.

Hi bi_harrington,

Allow me to join the thread. Have you tried to run the Transaction Detail by Account report in Modern view? On the other hand, you can also run Unapplied Cash Payment Income report on your Chart of Accounts. Here's how: 

1. Go to Gear icon and select Chart of Accounts.
2. Search for Unapplied Cash Payment Income and select Run report. 
3. Set the report period and on Customise option make sure you've selected Cash.

Please refer on the screenshot below on how Modern View looks like on your report. 

If you wish to run the same report in the future, you can change the report name by clicking on the pencil icon located on Account Drilldown QuickReport and then select Save. You can then access this report by going to Business overview > Reports tab and then Custom reports. 

Feel free to drop a comment below if you have any other questions, we're here to help you. Have a nice day! 

Thanks .

The modern version of the report does not have memo as a field.

I have managed to run it from the general ledger. However, I am not a fan of the modern view of reports. I think the old ones are much better.

I think what I am actually looking for is a report that shows the credits, with the original credit amount, and the balance. If I can also bring the memo field on to this report too that would be great. We may receive money as a prepayment, which will be used up over time to pay off several invoices, and I need a report that shows each of those prepayments (unapplied credits) with their original amounts and their balance amounts. I cannot get this from a general ledger report, as this gives me a running total for the entire account.

Hope you can help!

I can help you with generating the report that you need, @bi_harrington. 

You can run the Transaction List by Customer report. Then, add the Memo/Description and Open Balance columns. 

Here's how:

1. Go to the Reports menu.
2. Search for Transaction List by Customer report.
3. Click on the Switch to classic view button.
4. Select the Gear icon on the report and tick the checkboxes for Open Balance and Memo/Description.

You can see the original amount and the open balance of each of your transactions.

Here's more information about running reports in QuickBooks Online.

Then, here's how you can apply multiple filters to customise your reports based on your needs.

Let me know if you need more help running your reports. I'm always glad to help in any way I can. Have a great rest of the day!

Thank you. I think we are getting close!

How do I now exclude all transactions with zero and all customers with zero balances, and get a total at the end of Open Balance?

I have managed to filter on payments only, so I only see the prepayments, I need to do the above now, and the report gives me what I need.

Hi there, bi_harrington.

When using the Transaction List by Customer report, currently we're unable to exclude transactions and customers with zero amount. As a work around, you can export the report to excel and then customise from there to remove zero balances.

Click on the export icon, and click on the Export to Excel. You can then open the file and customise and save them.

Feel free to post your concerns in the Community or click the Reply button for follow-up questions about reports. We'll be happy to help. Have a good day!

Thank you, and what about getting an open balance total on the report?

Hi bi_harrington,

Since the Transaction List by Customer does not show the totals for open balance. You can check out Accounts Receivable Ageing Detail report. This will show total for open balance as well as the memo.

1. Click on the Reports tab.
2. Search Accounts Receivable Ageing Detail report.
3. Set a Report period, Ageing method.
4. Click on the Gear icon and tick box for Memo.
5. Click also on Customise button to add Rows/Columns and Filter.

Keep me posted if you have other QuickBooks concerns or questions. I'll get back to help you the best that I can.