Recording a customer prepayment onQuickBooks Accountants Desktop ver 2024

You've come to the right place for assistance, PASC. I'm thrilled to assist you in recording customer prepayments in your QuickBooks Accountant Desktop, ensuring accurate financial records and cash flow management.

The prepayments feature in QuickBooks Desktop is only accessible in QuickBooks Enterprise 24.0 or later. If you're using another version, consider upgrading to a newer version of QuickBooks Desktop to have this feature. 

If you're a QuickBooks Accountant Enterprise user, you can follow the tailored steps below:

Step1: Enable Prepayments

1. Go to Edit and then Preferences.
2. Choose Payments and then Company Preferences.
3. Navigate to Prepayments to select Prepayment Settings.
4. Hit on Turn On Prepayments.
5. Go to Current Liability account and select an esxGo to Current Liability Account and select a current liability account or select to create a new one.
6. Once done, choose OK, then select OK again in preferences.

Step2: Receive prepayments on a sales order or estimate

If you don't have sales orders turned on in your company file, you'll have to turn it on first.

1. Create a new existing sales order or estimate or open an existing one.
2. Choose Receive Payments.
3. Select Prepayment on Sales Order or Prepayment on Estimate.
4. Enter the amount and other details for the prepayment and then select Save and Close.

Step3: Apply a prepayment credit to an Invoices

1. Open the sales order or estimate and select Create Invoice.
2. Choose Save this Invoice and hit Yes to apply for prepayment credits.
3. Select the prepayment credit and enter or edit the amount of credit to apply to this Invoice. Then hit Done.

It is important to note that Prepayments are recorded as liabilities until the goods or services are delivered. Once you apply the prepayment to an invoice, you can no longer edit it. If changes are needed, delete the initial prepayment and create a new one.

Additionally, I'll share this article that will help close out your books by reconciling your payments and entries: Reconcile an account in QBDT.

I'm willing to lend a hand again if you have other concerns or questions about handling customer prepayments in QBDT. Drop a reply to this post or create another one. I'm here to assist you and will respond promptly to any inquiries you have.

The prepayment feature works fine ONLY IF you are manually processing a payment in QB from an estimate or sales order.  It is not working at all when the customer uses an Intuit payment link (send via QB payments).  When the payment makes its way to us we are prompted to apply the payment to the customer's account.  HOWEVER there is no option to use the incoming payment as a prepayment.  If an invoice is not being paid then the other choice is to keep the payment as a credit on the account.  Now how would I apply this credit to a sales order?  Or why can't Intuit fix the payment posting screen to allow the option to post as a prepayment against an order or estimate?  Waiting for a resolution to avoid serious financial errors caused by some prepayments handled correctly and others not. 

Yes, you're right, @Anne16720. I'll tackle the details of applying credit to a sales order in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT).

At this time, QuickBooks Payments doesn't support recording prepayments. Instead, you'll need to manually record them in QBDT. It's also important to note that you can't apply the credit directly to a sales order. You'll have to convert it first into an invoice. To do that, please refer to Step 3 provided by the previous agent.

Additionally, check out this article to learn when QuickBooks Payments deposits customer payments into your bank account: Find out when QuickBooks Payments deposits customer payments.

Keep me in the loop for any further questions concerning prepayments. The Community is always ready to address any queries you have. Take care.