Am I Ready to Send an Invoice in QuickBooks Online?

Hi Snowback,

 

Your examples are great and I appreciate seeing them laid out as they are. There may be a bit more of an accounting edge to this, so I'd love if some of our accountant users could step in to lend a hand with answering this one, but here's what I've come up with.

 

From what I've researched, deferred revenue is money received in advance before the product or service is rendered to the customer. That being said, what may fit into that category and is something you can work with is retainers or up-front deposits. The manage upfront deposits or retainers article explains in more detail about how to set these up and use the items on forms in QuickBooks Desktop, including Enterprise. There are a couple of options for how to apply/enter the retainer or deposit, but setting it up is the same in both instances.

 

Using those steps, you may be able to get the results you're looking for. You can always give it a test run and delete it after if it's not quite what you need.

 

You're welcome to explore the community here to see if there are others who have worked out the best way to record what you need. Otherwise, it may be worth connecting with an accountant who's familiar with the program to learn what other options are available. With our Find an Accountant tool, it's possible to narrow your search to accountants in your area using your postal code and to narrow down the products they're familiar with using the filter options.

 

I hope that helps and I hope you enjoy QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise!

Thanks for the response. I will look into your suggestion. Let's ignore the GST, What I am really looking for is if there is an automatic way to create an item that will break down the revenue as such. A) you pick the item say Snowy's software and put an amount of $2,000. B) the program spits the amount moving $360 into a deferred revenue account on the Balance sheet, and the balance $1,640 going to Software Sales in the revenue section of the P&L. The amount of Snowy's software rental may vary in time and in price, but the deferred revenue (which is the maintenance revenue) will always be 18% of the sales received, the balance being. This amount will be booked into sales throughout the life of the rental period. SO can QB make the calculations and allocations for me, or does it have to be done manually? The invoice will only show the one line showing the overall cost of $2,000 for the software, but in the background the system calculated out the deferred revenue and books it and books the balance to Sales on the P&L. I hope I have explained it clearly. Snowy

I can help you do this in QuickBooks, Snowy.

 

First, we need to create the items for Snowy's software and Deferred Revenue.

 

Here's how:

1. Click Lists located at the top.
2. Choose Item List, and click the Item drop-down menu.
3. Select New, and choose the Type.
4. Enter the Item Name/Number, and enter the Price. For Snowy's software, enter 1,640.00 and 360.00 for Deferred Revenue.
5. Choose the account from the Account drop-down list. For Snowy's software, select the income account and for Deferred Revenue, choose a liability account.
6. Click OK.

The next step is to create a group item and include the ones we created.

1. Click the Item drop-down list, and select New.
2. Choose Group from the Type drop-down menu.
3. Enter a Group Name/Number and Description.
4. Under Items, choose the items (Snowy's software and Deferred Revenue) we created.
5. Click OK.
6. Go to Customers and select Create Invoices.
7. Select the customer's name, and choose the group item under the Item column.
8. Choose the GST from the Tax drop-down menu.

Finally, run the Journal Report by pressing Ctrl + Y on your keyboard to see the entries. Also, when you print the invoice, it will only show the overall total.

 

Please leave a comment if you have any additional questions or other concerns. Thank you.