Applying a customers donation to outstanding mission trip invoices

Since the donation is restricted in its use and I assume you do not have dedicated bank accounts for restricted use, I would do it this way

deposit the funds using donation income

enter the payments made and use the mission trip expense account for the payment

Thanks so much for responding so quickly. 

No we don't have separate bank accounts. 

I do not understand the 2nd part of your answer : 

"enter the payments made and use the mission trip expense account for the payment"

• The initial donation has been banked via sales receipt and bank deposit into the main bank account. 
• I am not paying any invoices but rather need to offset the donation against customer invoices  on our system. 

Let me help you offset donations in our system, CHMM.
 

The only way to offset donation is to link the amount to those 3 invoices one at a time. But before that, you'll have to make sure that you have the following:

• An invoice for the customer.
• Payment hasn't been entered and linked to the invoice.
• The payment was entered through Bank Deposit instead of Receive Payment.

For more information, you can read and follow this article for the detailed steps: How To Link A Deposit To An Invoice.

Another way is to delete the invoices if you don't want to link them to deposit. Then, keep the sales receipts. 

Also, QuickBooks automatically downloads your recent transactions once payment is made. You'll want to match any records you've entered. For future reference, you can visit this article: Categorize And Match Online Bank Transactions In QuickBooks Online.

Keep me posted on your progress I'll be around if you need help any time of the day

HI Maria, 

Thank you for your feedback. 

I have three invoices for 3 different customers - each with outstanding balances open on their  invoice. 

I received via  sales receipt which was then deposited into the bank account a donation from a church and   this money was to be used by us  to offset the balances on the above 3 afore mentioned invoices. 

The church donation is 1 customer and the invoices are for 3 other customers 

i read the articles you gave but dont see how this works ? Could you kindly provide me with steps to follow. 

Thank you for getting back, @CHMM.

I can share with you some additional information about linking donations to outstanding invoices.

Paying open invoices with donations depends on how you enter them in QuickBooks. If the donations were entered as deposits, you have to select your Accounts Receivable account under the Account column. Doing so, it'll post an open credit that you can apply to all your invoices to mark them as paid.

Since you received it via a sales receipt, yes, you can create a journal entry to transfer them as payments for all your open invoices. Before that, I encourage consulting with a professional accountant for additional guidance and assistance. They can also assist you with what accounts to use in order to post the amounts accordingly.

Also, please feel free to open this article for an additional reference about recording donations: How to record donations or charitable contributions.

Let me know if you have any other questions. I'm always here to help. Wishing you a good one!