When making journal entries, the NAME does not appear on the reports. Is there a explination for this?

Journal Entry are brute force accounting entries.

If you want Names on Banking transactions, you use Banking Transactions. You don't use JE. If you want Names for sales transactions, you don't use JE. You use Sales Transactions.

It's best to avoid JE when you want Name-related functions, and use the Name-related Activities that are provided for.

Also, JE bypass cash vs accrual basis reporting, and don't show for Sales reporting and are not used for Sales Tax activities. They are not Spending, Purchase, or Sales, really. They are Accounting Entries, and hardly used in any of the QB programs or products.

It is not true that they are rarely used. They are used a lot for sole proprietors who pay for things on personal credit cards or by other personal funds. In Quickbooks desktop the names show in all reports and also searches by name show the journal entries. In QB online the names do not show in reports if they have been entered in journal entries and search by name does not bring up the journal entries that the names have been entered into. This is not making it easy to use. I hope they fix this.  

Exactly correct.

JEs are also used to amortize expenses. In fact, QBO help suggests, "To handle the amortization of intangible assets, you can create a journal entry to deplete it."

The monthly expense of that asset is from a journal entry, and I still want to be able to see which vendor the expense was related to, even if I didn't pay them this month...

If the name shows on the JE, why doesn't it report?!?

Glad to have you here in the Community, @alamo14.

Allow me to add some more insights on why names use on journal entries are not showing up on reports. 

The name that you enter on the journal entry is intended for the specific line of the entry. Having that said, this won't show up on the reports as it doesn't represent the name of the transaction.

To see the name that is attached to the journal entry you'll need to open the transaction manually upon running the report.

Here's how you can view all journal entry created:

1. From the left menu, select Reports.
2. Search for the Journal report in the search bar.
3. Select Customize. 
4. ​Uncheck the Name.
5. Select Customer, Employee or Vendor.
6. On the Filter section, select Transaction Type, then choose Journal Entry from the drop-down.
7. Select Run Report.

This information should get you moving today. 

Please let me know if you have further questions by leaving a reply below. I'm always here to provide further assistance. Have a great day!

Thanks for the additional insight.

It still appears inconsistent - at least in labelling - but I think it could help our situation...

Regarding the inconsistent: The field labelled "Name" on each journal line does show on that report you suggested, sometimes in the "Customer" column, sometimes in the "Supplier" column, and (presumably although I don't have that example in our data) sometimes in the "Employee" column.

Regarding our need: We export transactions for use elsewhere, which we do from a couple of reports. When I submitted this, I was looking at our customisation of the Profit Loss Detail report, which does NOT allow selection of the customer, supplier, or employee columns. However, we may be able to make use of the Transaction Detail report, which does... We also use the General Ledger report, which appears to allow these other columns.

Of course, it would make interfaces simpler if that information was populated into the one column consistently...

It's good to hear that you were able to pull up the correct report, alamo14.

The name field will depend on the type of report and the source of transaction. If you pull up the report for general transactions (for the customer, vendor, and employee) then, their names will fall on the NAME field.

If you run General Ledger and Transaction Detail report, their names will fall on their type of transactions.

In these two reports, you'll have the option to show only your customer, vendor, or employee's transactions.

You can check these articles on how to customize your reports:

• How to customize reports
• Available reports in QuickBooks Online
• How to Filter Reports: Customers, Vendors, and Products

These additional insights will help you understand more about the different reports. I'm always here if you still need my help. Thank you.

Why do names show up on reports but not on the actual transaction? 

Hi Jfkastq!

I'm wondering why you don't have names on your transactions. You can tag a customer or a vendor's name on your journal entries. I can actually do this on my end. Please see the screenshot for your visual reference.

Is there a specific transaction that you don't have names on? You can add a screenshot when you reply to this post.

We're just right here to continue helping you with this.

We have multiple donors for one check, but doing a J/E, or a bank deposit, does not help because it doesn't show up under the customers/donors. In the old desktop version, you could list multiple customers/donors for a single check and the entries/amounts would show up under the customer/donor name. The online version will not do this. How are we supposed to enter these donations? You can only have one customer on a Sales Receipt so that doesn't work either.

Hello, @clr9.

In QuickBooks Online (QBO) a Bank Deposit will not show up on the customer/donor transaction list page unless you use an Accounts Receivable (A/R) account. 

To record this, you'll have to create a Sales Receipt for each customer/donor, deposit it to Undeposited Funds account. Then, create a Bank Deposit to record it to your checking account.

Here’s how to create a sales receipt:

1. Select + New and click on Sales receipt.
2. Provide all the necessary information.
3. Choose Undeposited Funds account from the Deposit to drop-down.
4. Click Save once you’re done.

You can now create a bank deposit to deposit it to your checking account:

1. Go to the + New button and choose Bank Deposit.
2. Select the checking account from the Account drop-down menu.
3. Click the box for each donations that you want to combine.
4. Select Save and close or Save and new once you’re done.

Check this article for more information:

• How to record donations or charitable contributions
• Set up and record in-kind donations

Let us know if there’s anything that you need. We’re always here to assist. Have a wonderful day!

I've used Quickbooks since the first day it first launched, and have used it through all iterations since then, as a business owner (large and small) and as a CPA. I wish I knew how to relay to Intuit that the failure to have the name-field from journal entries print on the G/L is simply a flaw in the program. And a serious one. I read the whole stream below of "why it doesn't" and how to work around it. Those who think JEs are "brute force" tools and should not be used just don't know old-school accounting. But regardless, there is simply no good reason that the G/L will not print names from journal entries. And the lack makes normal accounting by a knowledgeable CPA virtually impossible in scenarios (and there are plenty) when journal entries are needed. If anyone knows how to deliver messages to Intuit, please ask them to fix this.

Thanks! 

Welcome to the Community, @alficinado.

Your voice matters to us, and we're taking notes of your feedback and suggestions to improve the customer's experience with QuickBooks Online (QBO).

I know how simple your work will be if the name field in the journal entries would show on the General Ledger report. However, as mentioned by my colleague BettyJaneB above, you'll have to open each of the journal entries when running the G/L report.

For now, you can visit our blog site so you'll be able to get the latest news about QuickBooks and what our Product Care Team is working on. 

Please touch base with me here for all of your QuickBooks needs, I'm always happy to help. Have a great day and keep safe.

I'm hoping to chime in on this thread to see if any progress has been made on having names from JEs show up in Profit and Loss reports. They did on QB desktop. Why not online? 

We record sales from Stripe using JEs because JEs make it easier to separate out list price, tax, shipping, credit card fees and simply provide a more accurate and precise way of bookkeeping.

We're a publisher and we'd organized our book sales using the Name columns in Quickbooks so we could pull a quick P&L to see a LTD profit and loss for each title. Now names don't show up in P&Ls. It's important that we have these LTD records not just as a look to the past but also as a guide for future projects. 

We just switched over from desktop to QBO and had we known this we would not have.

I appreciate that you took time to answer this question but I take issue with the reason given.  The NAME of the transaction would appear in the Number column.  Other QB user interface tools, such as bills and invoices, allow for multiple lines with different data and the names from those transactions appear on reports just fine.  This is a problem and it needs to be fixed.

Thanks for joining the thread, @goingconcernllc.

We can open the transaction in question and check on the top right corner if the Transaction number is not a name. If so, you can edit it to a number.

However, if it's correct, we can try another type of report that will show the same data. If you get the same result, I'd recommend contacting our Customer Support Team. This way, they can pull up your account in a secure environment and check what is the main cause of the issue.

Here's how:

1. Go to the Help menu, and then select Contact Us.
2. Enter your concern.
3. Click Let’s talk.
4. Choose to Get a callback. 
5. Type in your contact info.
6. Select Confirm my call.

Please check our support hours to ensure that we address your concerns on time: Support hours and types.

I've added this article on how to customize any report that you generate: Customize reports in QuickBooks Online.

I'm always here if you need more help in getting the report that you need and or anything else. Have a wonderful day!

This is also a problem when I run reports by Vendor Name.

The journal entries don't come up. It could seriously mess up 1099s.

Why doesn't it get coded to the correct Payee when I put the name in the Journal Entry field? This is not an issue for Desktop.

Thanks.

Let me add some information as to why the Payee doesn't show correctly on Journal Entry reports, RomeoRazi.

According to @qbteachmt, you'll want to avoid JE when you want Name-related functions and use the Name-related Activities instead. Also, JE bypass cash vs accrual basis reporting and are not used for Sales Tax activities since they are accounting entries and aren't related to Spending, Purchase, or Sales.

In QuickBooks Online (QBO), we several reports related to Vendors such as the Vendor Balance Detail or Vendor Balance Summary report that will surely show the correct payee, you can run them instead. To do this, you can follow the steps below:

1. Click Reports on the left menu.
2. Search for the vendor report on the search field.
   
3. Select the correct Report period to show the correct information. 
4. Click Run report. 

For your reference, you can also customize the appearance and layout of your sales forms to add the information that matters most to your business.

Reach out to us if you need further assistance with the vendor's name. We'll always be right here to help.

This is one more reason why, as a Bookkeeper I BEG my clients not to make me use QBO.  The journal entries NEED to show a name, there are many transactions that an accountant or bookkeeper that can't be entered as a bank, invoice, or bill transaction.

Yes, I fixed the problem by putting the name of the vendor or customer in the NUM for the JE but that is not a professional solution.

Hi Lynda.

I value your feedback about journal entries in QuickBooks Online. I'm taking note of your insights and ensure to pass along the information to our product developers. At this time, adding the names on the journal entry is available per line item. When running your reports, you can add the Name, Customer, Vendor, and Employee columns to get the name details.

1. Click on Reports at the left pane.
2. Open the report you need.
3. Go to the small gear icon, then add the columns mentioned above.

I've added these screenshots for your visual references.

For additional resources about journal entries and reports, you can open these articles:

• Create a journal entry in QuickBooks Online
• Run reports in QuickBooks Online

Besides, you can review the topics from our help articles for more tips while working with QuickBooks in the future. Here's the link: Find QuickBooks help articles for QBO.

To stay current with the latest QuickBooks news and feature enhancements, you can also visit our blog. 

Please let me know how else I can help you with QuickBooks or journal entries. I'm more than happy to help. Keep safe!

So I have noticed, in the transaction report detail it lists the name if it has only one donor in the deposit.  If there are more than 1 donor in the deposit the field is left blank.  This is definitely a programming error, otherwise it would never show up.  This really needs to be fixed, I want to go back to the desktop version.

It's amusing to hear that "Journal Entry are brute force accounting entries." As an accountant, journal entries are the heart of what I do once I have analyzed transactions to determine has happened, which accounts have been impacted by any given transaction. Through the magic of computers, registries are automatically generated from journal entries. Quickbooks shifts that paradigm amd makes the heart of double entry accounting - the journal entry - into "brute force" accounting. I personally believe that this shift is a disservice to its users in the name of convenience, because it keeps users from understanding what is truly happening from an accounting perspective.

If our voices matter to you, then why hasn't QB fixed this flaw after decades? How can we track the progress of these suggestions being implemented?

We hear you and your voice matters to us, jzrc.  

We value the opinions of all QuickBooks users and often use this input when deciding on future updates and addition.  

You can visit the QuickBooks Product Updates from time to time to see new updates. From there, you can see the future developments and the latest news about QuickBooks and what our Product Care Team is working on.       

I appreciate your patience as we work through this. If there's anything else I can do for you, please let me know. I'll be around to help you out. Stay safe!

It tells me "This report does not contain any data" and I know for sure there is a Journal entry with the vendor KI chose on it.