Question

Deferred Revenue

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
March 29, 2022
1 reply
106 views

My company provides event-driven marketing services to companies. We invoice all the companies at the time of sale, but the marketing event occurs at a later date. Is there a way to 'map' the invoices so that when posted the debit goes to deferred revenue, rather than revenue? Right now I have to JE each invoice when entered, and then reverse each JE when the events occur and the revenue is earned..

(note: we do accrual accounting)

Thanks!

QuickBooks Online

S

ShiellaGraceA

Level 9

Welcome to Community, @malo21.

I'll share some insight about mapping customer invoices. QuickBooks record invoices to income and accounts receivable (A/R) by default. Thus, mapping them to deferred revenue is un-available. You'll have to record a journal entry.

I recommend consulting an accountant for best way to handle deferred revenue. You can visit our site to find an accountant near you: Find a ProAdvisor.

Here are some additional resources that'll help you manage customer-related tasks.

Feel free reply to this thread if you have follow-up questions or concerns about mapping invoices. I'm more than willing to assist you. Take care and have a great day ahead.

M

malo21Author

Is there any version of QB that allows for an invoice to be mapped to deferred revenue rather than reveune?

H

heatherthebookkeeper

@malo21

You're spot on. I'm not sure why @Kevin_C and @ShiellaGraceA are telling you that you can't map an invoice item to a deferred revenue account. All you need to do is set up item(s) mapped to a deferred revenue liability account and send it to your customer. That debits A/R and credits deferred revenue. Then, when the customer pays the invoice it debits your bank account and credits A/R. At this point, you still have the credit balance in deferred revenue that you need to move to income. After the marketing event, create a journal entry and debit deferred revenue and credit the appropriate income account and you're good to go.

I work for a company that manufactures ladders for the navy primarily. The way the accountant here has them entering things is that they put in a sales order. If they get a prepayment, they do a journal entry to debit ar and credit deferred revenue. Then, when the item ships out they have them do an invoice and apply the payment to the invoice. This makes VERY messy reports and the owner is a stickler about his reports! Right now, he has me looking at why the deferred revenue account shows invoices, credit memos, payments and journal entries. Does anyone see a problem with the way they are doing this process? I just started with this company and so did this accounting firm; just before me so, we have no idea how it was previously done but the owner is not happy with this process. Please help! I love quickbooks because I hate Journal entries and this is way out of my league.

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