Add existing invoices to projects in QuickBooks Online

Learn how to add paid and unpaid invoices to projects in QuickBooks Online Plus, Advanced or Accountant.

Once you’ve set up your project, creating new invoices to add to a project is simple. But take care with existing invoices, especially invoices that are already linked to a payment. Editing invoices that are linked to payments will disconnect the payment. Don’t worry. We’ll show you how to add paid and unpaid existing invoices to your project and how to reconnect the linked payments.

Add unpaid invoices to a project

The best time to add existing invoices to projects is before they’re linked to a payment. Here’s how to add an unpaid invoice:

1. Go to Sales and select Invoices (Take me there).
2. Find and select the unpaid invoice.
3. Select Edit invoice.
4. Select the Customer ▼ dropdown. Then select the project. 
5. Select Save.

Learn more about paid invoices before editing

When you add a paid invoice to your project, the invoice disconnects from the attached payment and the invoice status changes to unpaid. After you edit the invoice, you’ll need to reconnect the payment to the invoice to avoid accidentally charging your customer twice.

You’ll also want to check that the Automatically apply credits setting is turned off before you edit a paid invoice. If this setting is turned on when you edit a paid invoice, QuickBooks will automatically apply the payment to the next open invoice for the customer.

We don’t recommend adding invoices linked to more than one other transaction, billable expense, or timesheet because you will have to manually fix each line item.  Here's a few simple steps to add a paid invoice to your project:

Here's a few simple steps to add a paid invoice to your project:

Step 1: Turn off Automatically apply credits

Before editing a paid invoice, make sure the Automatically apply credits setting is turned off.

1. Select Settings , then Account and settings.
2. Select the Advanced tab.
3. Scroll to the Automation section and select the pencil ✎ icon it to expand it.
4. Turn off the Automatically apply credits setting.
5. Select Save and Done.

After adding paid invoices to your project, you can repeat these steps to turn the setting back on.

Step 2: Add the paid invoice to the project

To add the paid invoice to your project: 

1. Go to Sales and select Invoices (Take me there).
2. Find and select the paid invoice you want to add to a project.
3. Select Edit invoice.
4. Select the Customer ▼ dropdown. Then select the project. 
5. Select Save.

Step 3: Reconnect the payment to the invoice

Now that you’ve added the invoice to the project, we need to reconnect the payment so the invoice is marked as paid again and linked to the correct invoice.

1. Go to Settings and select Chart of Accounts.
2. Find the account where the payment was deposited and select Account history.
3. Find and select the payment for the invoice, then select Edit.
4. In Outstanding Transactions, select the invoice checkbox that the payment applies to.
5. Select Save and close.