Client Marketing Arrangement?

From what you say, I can not see a reason to ever enter money received twice, so there must be something I am not understanding

Set up the vendors/suppliers as customers, the name has to be slightly different, I add a period to the customer name.

Create the service item you will use to invoice them if necessary, and of course that service item links to an income account. Then invoice them, either for a total amount or a partial amount ever so many months.

What you spend on marketing is an expense

Whether you move the money received to a separate bank account or not is up to you. That is really the only way to segregate the funds for a specific use in the future

I'm probably not explaining it right. Here's an example. 

My client purchases $3,000 worth of services from me, for which I generate invoice 1.

My client wants me to bill two of his suppliers $1,000 each, which will be used to offset the work he purchased from me, so it would look something like this:

 $3,000 Client Invoice

-$1,000 Supplier A Payment

-$1,000 Supplier B Payment

----------------------------------

$1,000 Balance Due from Client

However, I need to generate (3) invoices. One for my client, and one each for his two suppliers. If I don't do this right, it'll look like I'm generating $5,000 worth of total invoices for a $3,000 project. Does that make more sense?

Thanks for your help.

I appreciate the detailed information you've provided above, @Kelly6. With that, I can guide you in recording your project income accordingly.

In your QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT) for Mac, you may set your client's suppliers as sub-customers (jobs). They'll be under the parent account which is your main client (the one who purchases $3,000 worth of services from you). Then, create 3 invoices (1 for your client, 1 supplier A, and 1 for supplier B) for $1,000 each. This way, you won't be recording income for the same project twice.

To create a parent account, here's how:

1. Go to the Customers menu, then select Customer Center.
2. Select the + dropdown menu, then select New Customer.
3. Fill out the fields. If there’s no field for the info that you want to enter (like a customer's website), you can create a custom field.
4. Click OK.

To add client's suppliers as sub-customers (jobs), here's how:

1. In the Customer Center, look for the customer that you want to add a sub-customer.
2. Select the customer's name then right-click.
3. Choose the Add Job tab.
4. Enter the job name.
5. Fill out all the information needed.
6. Click OK.

Once you're done creating three invoices for $1,000 each, the next step is to receive their payments once the client and sub-customers pay them. For the step-by-step guide, you can refer to this article: Record an invoice payment.

Also, the job costing tools in QBDT for Mac lets you track how much money you spend and make for each job. To know more about this, I'd recommend checking out this article: Track job costs and profitability in QuickBooks Desktop for Mac. Then, customize predefined customer, job, and sales reports to focus on the information that matters most to your business.

If you need further assistance in recording project income transactions in QBDT for Mac, please don't hesitate to leave a comment below. I'm always around to help. Take care, and I wish you continued success, @Kelly6.