Question

Customer write off

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
April 1, 2022
1 reply
2 views

Last year we had a customer who was not paying us. So we did a General Journal for that customer account and Debited Allowance for doubtful accounts, credited the GST and credited bad debts. This year before our year end I'm going to write it off. I have 2 questions.

1) Would I Credit the Customer allowance for doubtful accounts and then debit the GST and Bad Debt accounts.

2) The customer total is at 0 but on "reminders" all their invoices are there showing not paid and if I go to the actually invoices they say "past due" which is why they show up in "reminders"

Can anyone give me some guidance on these issues?

Thanks

QuickBooks Desktop

T

Trish_T

QuickBooks Team

Hi Coop3,

Thanks for reaching out here. Welcome! QuickBooks is a dynamic program that allows you to complete your daily tasks with peace of mind. When invoices remain unpaid, you can write them off as bad debt to ensure your accounts and net income remain aligned. I'll be happy to show you how!

The first step is to create an account for the bad debt by following these steps:

1. From the Lists menu, select Chart of Accounts

2. Open the Account menu and then New

3. Choose Expense and then Continue

4. Enter an Account Name

5. Hit Save and Close

Here's how to close unpaid invoices:

1. Go to Customers from the menu and select Receive Payments

2. Enter the name of the customer in the Received from field

3. For the Payment amount, enter $0.00

4. Choose Discounts and credits

5. In the Amount of Discount field, enter the amount you need to write off

6. For Discount Account, select the account you added in step 1, and select Done

7. When finished, hit Save and Close.

Here's a helpful guide for future reference on how to write off bad debt in QuickBooks Desktop.

Please feel free to reach back out with other questions. We'd be glad to help!

C

Coop3Author

I just really want to make sure I have given all information so this can be dealt with properly.

Last year at year end we credited "Allowance - doubtful accounts" for the total amount this customer owed, and we debited the GST and Bad Debts accounts. To note… the invoices themselves still show up on my reminders as overdue, yet the if I look at the customer itself it says they owe us “0” most likely because of the journal entry we did. Again, the amount they owed in total was done as a general journal entry and we Credited the Allowance for doubtful accounts, Debited the GST and Bad Debt account.

Now this year - it’s clear that these invoices will not be paid as the customer has gone out of business. Taking not that we have done the previous journal entry, which I assume is not a write off, I would like to write it off, and also make it so the invoices don’t show I’m my reminders as not being paid even though when I look at that customer it says they owe us zero. I really want to get this right, our year end is at the end of April. Please take into account my previous journal entry as well.

Thank you to whoever answers, I greatly appreciate it.

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