Can you apply a credit note against a Journal? Or is there another way to deal with bad debt write off against a journal? Thanks

Hi @Janet D 

If the Journal was raised against a Customer Name & Accounts Receivable it should appear as an amount owing in Bill Payments for that customer - so can be cleared off by a Credit Note.

(an Invoice is just a user-friendly / visible Journal between A/R & a Sales account)

However, I can't think of a reason for raising a debt in this way.  You would usually want to raise an Invoice so you have something to send to the customer as evidence of the debt (without it, how does the customer know they owe the money?).

The usual way to write off any Bad Debt would be a Journal against the Customer Name between A/R & Bad Debt account.  This essentially creates a Credit which can be cleared against the Debt in Bill Payments.

Hope this helps.

Hello and welcome to the Community, Janet D

If the journal is posting to the Debtors (accounts receivable) account as a debit, you can match this with a credit note for the same customer using a payment. 

To do this, first check that the journal has the customer selected in the Name field. Then, go to the customers page and select New transaction > Payment.

The journal entry will then show under Outstanding transactions, and the credit note under Credits. Make sure that both are ticked and then save. 

For guidance on recording bad debt for customers in QuickBooks Online, see here. Thanks for reaching Intuit support. We'll be here if you need any additional assistance.