Customer payments

Good to see you here in the Community, @Michelle0531. I'm here to share my insights about matching transactions in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

Whether we receive the payment or not, we're still able to match the deposits in our bank feeds. After linking your bank account, QBO automatically downloads the newest transactions and sends them to the For review tab. We'll review them one-by-one, and match the deposit, so we don't get duplicates. 

Here's how:

1. Go to Banking and select Banking.
2. Select the Checking account.
3. In the bank feeds, select a transaction you'd want to match.
4. Select Find match.
5. In the Match transactions page, select the type of transaction in the Show dropdown and enter the date range.
6. Check the box for the transaction you want to match, and select Save.

If you haven't received the payment and matched the invoice to a deposit, the invoice will be marked as PAID. 

In addition, we can create rules to categorize transactions automatically in QBO. This way, it speeds up the review process and saves time. The more often we use bank rules, the better it gets at categorizing. It can eventually even scan transactions and include details like payees.

Feel free to leave a comment below if you have clarifications with matching transactions in QBO. We're always around to assist you. Stay safe, and enjoy your day!

Thanks for your response!  I do realize how to categorize, but I am unsure why there are two ways to handle the customer payments?  It would seem best to have one correct way to handle them.

I appreciate you for getting back on this thread, @Michelle0531.

I'll chime in and lay out some details to clear things up for you about handling these transactions in QuickBooks Online.

When you've signed up for QuickBooks Payments account to handle customer payments, you don't have to receive the payments as well as categorize them manually. QBO automatically matches them for you. Thus, it increases the accuracy of your books.

In such cases, QuickBooks may not automatically match the transactions and leave it to you to manually categorize them from the bank feeds. To do so, you can follow the detailed step-by-step guide from my colleague JaeAnnC above.

You might want to consider checking out this article for more insights into organizing your transactions seamlessly: Categorize and match online bank transactions in QuickBooks Online.

When everything is all set, here's a handy resource to reconcile your accounts in the future: Reconcile an account in QuickBooks Online.

Do you require additional assistance with QB Payments? Please don't hesitate to include them in your response. I'll be right here to answer them for you. Keep safe!

Thanks for replying.  I am talking about when we receive a check from a customer for an invoice.  It seems I can either receive payment or wait for the deposit to come through on our linked bank account.  Is that the case?

Thanks for following up with the Community, Michelle0531.

If a customer makes a payment with a physical check, you'll want to record their transaction in your books.

Here's how:

1. In the left navigation bar, use your + New button.
2. Click Receive payment.
3. Choose a customer from the Customer drop-down list.
4. From your Payment method drop-down, specify how they paid.
5. Use the Deposit to drop-down to pick which account you put your payment into.
6. Find the Outstanding Transactions section, then tick your checkbox to indicate which invoice you're recording a payment for.
7. If necessary, enter a Reference no. and Memo.
8. Select Save and close.

Once your linked bank account imports the associated deposit, you can use your steps in JaeAnnC's post to categorize and match it.

I've also included a detaield resources about receiving payments which may come in handy moving forward: Record invoice payments

If there's any additional questions, I'm just a post away. Have a great day!