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Hotwire04
Level 1

How do I record no payment or clients that dont pay their bills as a loss in my quickbooks

I have a client that is not paying x amount of dollars. How do I show that I lost money there?
How do I record that he isnt paying the invoice and therefore I am out the labour and material costs
Do I do an account to write off bad debt and create an invoice or a credit memo?
I am unsure how I can record not only that the invoice billed isnt paid now,it will never be paid and therefore I am at a loss for this job.
17 Comments 17
Countrymusicmom
Level 2

How do I record no payment or clients that dont pay their bills as a loss in my quickbooks

Set up an Expense Account called Bad Debt.

Set up an Item called Bad Debt and link it to the Bad Debt Expense Account.

Create a credit for the customer and use the Bad Debt item.

Apply the credit to the outstanding invoice.

That will clear the outstanding invoice.

Your Profit & Loss will show the loss as an expense.
clriley0125
Level 1

How do I record no payment or clients that dont pay their bills as a loss in my quickbooks

I have a question with regard to your above answer CMM. We are a general contractor and occasionally underestimate on our jobs, and can only charge the customer what we estimated, or a close approximation. I want to show the loss on the jobbut it is not necessarily a "Bad Debt" because we didn't actually bill the cutomer the full amount, knowing we had overrun the time and materials. How would you suggest I post the loss in QB Pro, so that the job doesn't show a profit when it really didn't? I was told by an accountant who is not well versed in construction just to reduce the per hour rate and/or the markup rate to make the invoice match the income we recevied. That has never sounded right to me, but I'm not an accountant, just a bookkeeper, and trusted her opinion. Your thoughts would be appreciated!
Countrymusicmom
Level 2

How do I record no payment or clients that dont pay their bills as a loss in my quickbooks

I'm not in construction, so don't work with estimates, but wonder, do you or do you have to create the invoice from the estimate?
alex23
Level 1

How do I record no payment or clients that dont pay their bills as a loss in my quickbooks

Thanks for that but:

- how do I create an "item" bad debt
- how do I link it
- how do I create a credit?
jason22
Level 1

How do I record no payment or clients that dont pay their bills as a loss in my quickbooks

yea I want to know what an "item" is and how to create it. So you mean like a service or goods item?
Malcolm Ziman
Level 10

How do I record no payment or clients that dont pay their bills as a loss in my quickbooks

Lists / Item List / right click, New / Service item
AlexanderM
Level 1

How do I record no payment or clients that dont pay their bills as a loss in my quickbooks

Are you using job costing? You report all of your expenses and claim them against a job. In the big picture your income is part of all of your income and your expenses are part of all of your expenses, the loss is buried in there. To see if you made any money on the job do a job cost report. Reports>Jobs, Time & Mileage
Anonymous
Not applicable

How do I record no payment or clients that dont pay their bills as a loss in my quickbooks

For  the Item ("Bad Debt"), Do you create it as a service or a non-Inventory Item?

AddieC
QuickBooks Team

How do I record no payment or clients that dont pay their bills as a loss in my quickbooks

Hey Silvia Armitage,

 

You can set up the item "Bad Debt" in whichever way works best for you. This is personal preference, and something you may want to run by your accountant. You can set this up as a non-inventory item, or even as "other charge". I want to make sure you get the best advice possible, so consulting your accountant is the best thing to do in this scenario. 

 

I hope this helps.

 

Cheers!

alwayslearning
Level 1

How do I record no payment or clients that dont pay their bills as a loss in my quickbooks

I work in construction for a general contractor and we have this happen at least once a year.  In all actuality, say you bid the job at $2000, it actually costs $5000. You only invoice your customer the $2000 because that was the quote. The customer pays and you post the $2000. That's all - run the "profit & loss by job" report and it should show you your true loss if your items are set up correctly.   You should be showing a negative under Net Income for that job (if it was indeed a loss).  Be sure your dates for the report cover the time frame , to be safe I always make mine "This Fiscal Year". The report will pick up on all payroll expenses, payroll taxes, fuel expenses, etc. that have been allocated to that job.   

Shmet
Level 1

How do I record no payment or clients that dont pay their bills as a loss in my quickbooks

I tried setting up an account as other charge for a lost invoice.  Quickbooks is picking it up as a credit and is asking me to issue a credit memo.  It does not seem correct.

LauraAB
QuickBooks Team

How do I record no payment or clients that dont pay their bills as a loss in my quickbooks

Hello Shmet,

 

I can appreciate wanting to make sure you're getting these steps right in your books. I've reviewed what was said above by other users and with what they're saying, the credit that's created by this process would be applied to the invoice to close it out. This would then also write off the bad debt.

 

If that process doesn't quite work for you, I encourage you to check out the following, brief article about another way to do this in the program: Write off bad debt in QuickBooks Desktop

 

QuickBooks Desktop also has great in-product articles that can be accessed by going to the Help menu, choosing QuickBooks Desktop Help, then the Help tab, and Search button. Use keywords such as "bad debt" to find articles related to this.

 

I hope that helps!

rmiga
Level 2

How do I record no payment or clients that dont pay their bills as a loss in my quickbooks

You can't claim a loss for something you did not collect.  

You could create a "discount" account and show it as a discount given to a client.  That way you will have a running tab of all the savings you gave away during the year. 

Again, it is not deducted from your income because you never actually had that money.  But this way it would give you some kind of a record so you are aware of your potential profits would have been. 

Go to ITEMS and click + for a new item line.
Under TYPE choose Discounts
Under RATE choose a specific $ amount or a % amount. 

 

You can create an ACCOUNT called "UNDERESTIMATES" and show it as an expense - then put any discount created under that as a SUB-ACCOUNT

This is just an idea. I give discounts to seniors and students on products purchased and have created a "DISCOUNT" item line just so I have a personal record.  Again, I do not claim this on my taxes because it is not money earned but potential money earned.  There may be a better way to record this but it allows me to create an invoice for the customer, showing the retail price of the items purchased and discount given.

LizLynch42
Level 1

How do I record no payment or clients that dont pay their bills as a loss in my quickbooks

How do I "Create a credit for the customer and use the Bad Debt item."

 

I only see that I can create a credit Memo for the customer that did not pay, but I can't use any item in the credit memo, I can only select a Product/Service.

 

But I would love to get rid of these items in the Overdue since they will never be paid.

Christinemccuaig
Level 1

How do I record no payment or clients that dont pay their bills as a loss in my quickbooks

If applying the invoice to Bad Debts, does the HST applied get reversed as well? 

LeithG
Level 7

How do I record no payment or clients that dont pay their bills as a loss in my quickbooks

Hi Christine:

 

This is a really good question!  I read a few different accountants blogs and here's what they had to say on the matter:

 

You can recover the HST on a written off bad debt; however, knowing that the CRA may challenge your assertion that the debt is bad, you may wish to maintain a log of attempts made to collect the money.  Generally good items to have on your list as proof are:

* records of phone calls made to attempt collection with date, time, and who you spoke to

* records of collection notices or statements sent to the customer, again with dates associated

* records of any legal routes taken; small claims court, etc.

 

Not that documenting the bad debt should cost you a bunch of money on an already bad debt, but having a tidy record of the attempt in collections can prevent a headache later on.

Joe187
Level 1

How do I record no payment or clients that dont pay their bills as a loss in my quickbooks

Hi I was wondering if you could put me in the right way to pay a missed payment 

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