Account Receivable

Hello NTaylor2,

It's great to hear that you're working with an accountant on this, and I also appreciate seeking out some additional insight of how these kinds of accounts work in QuickBooks Online. I'm here to help however I can.

In QuickBooks Online, Accounts Receivable will prompt you to associate it with a customer. In the program, the A/R account is used to "track transactions related to customers who owe you money," which is a description I've pulled from here: Learn about the chart of accounts in QuickBooks. Given that, recording the journal entry as you're trying to do so won't work without assigning some sort of customer.

What I recommend is going back to your accountant to see if setting up a customer for this kind of transaction might work for you, or if there's another way to record the accrued interest you're referring to. If your accountant isn't yet a user on your account, it may be beneficial for you both to add them as one. That way, they'll have the tools and access to help you directly in your books. You can add them as a user through the My Accountant tab.

Feel free to share any thoughts or feedback you might have about this situation with our product development team by taking these steps: How do I submit feedback? Comments are forwarded to that team, and the developers read through them for considerations in future updates of the software. To stay up-to-date with updates and new features, check out and bookmark this link: QuickBooks Online Feature & Product Updates

I hope this helps explain what's going on when you're trying to create the transaction. I wish you the best!

I am trying to post a journal entry to accounts receivable (with names of various customers / employees) but QBooks does not accept some of the names and returns an error message When you use Accounts Receivable, you must choose a customer in the Name field.

Hi there AL358,

It's important that all your transactions have the correct information to affect your books correctly. QuickBooks Online is a great tool able to help you keep track of sales and expenses so you can see the profit of your company. I can provide some information about using accounts receivable in a journal entries.

When adding accounts receivable as a line in a journal entry, the name of a customer specifically must be added as a name for the line. The name of an employee or supplier would not be accepted by the system.

If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out here.