accounts receivable

Hello and welcome to the QuickBooks Community, jrfarrow. I see you are having some issues with your A/R and balance sheet in one of your business files

Making changes to the amount you paid for the inventory should not directly affect your Accounts Receivable balance. The A/R account tracks outstanding sales transactions, not payments made when the item was bought.

Instead, the A/R account would also be impacted if you changed the details on the actual sales transactions. 

Given that the invoice is showing $10,500 for a single item, I would also expect your A/R balance to match that full $10,500 amount, assuming no credits or advance payments were applied.

The fact that your A/R shows only $5,000 likely indicates some type of data corruption or damage has occurred in your QuickBooks Desktop company file.

Here are a couple of articles that can help you troubleshoot and resolve possible data issues:

• Fix Data Damage On Your QuickBooks Desktop Company File
• Resolve Potential Data Issues In QuickBooks Desktop

After that, go back to the balance sheet report and check if everything is now correct. 

Let me know if you have any other questions as you work through the troubleshooting steps, jrfarrow. You can also post new questions if you need anything else. I'd be happy to provide assistance and articles to guide you through. 

I rebuilt the data (took less than 4 seconds by the way) but the same issue persists.

I'm wondering if the issue could have something to do with inventory being turned on. Possibly QB's reports the total cost of goods that have been invoiced but not yet paid as accounts receivable and not the total invoice amount when inventory is turned on.

Thanks for the follow-up, jrfarrow. Allow me to share additional details to guide you further.

When Inventory is enabled, the COGS account will increase when inventory items are sold. This will show on your Profit & Loss report and not on the Balance Sheet.

When the Inventory feature is turned on, the COGS account will increase once the item is sold. However, it will only be reported in your Profit and Loss and not in the Balance Sheet.

Additionally, any changes to COGS or inventory items will not directly impact your Accounts Receivable balance. The A/R account pulls from sales transactions like invoices. It is important to note that COGS is an expense account, while AR is an asset account, and they are not directly related. 

You can read more details about this here: Understand Inventory Assets And Cost Of Goods Sold Tracking.

To get to the bottom of the discrepancy you're seeing, I suggest contacting our QuickBooks support team directly. They can take a closer look at your company file to determine what might be causing your A/R balance to fluctuate incorrectly.

Here's how to reach out to them:

1. Go to the Help menu and select Contact Us.
2. Click Contact Us at the bottom of the pop-up window.
3. Type in a short description of your concern and click Continue.
4. Log in to your account and select between Chat and Callback.

Let me also share a couple of articles in case you need more information and resources when tracking inventories in QuickBooks:

• Fix Negative Inventory Issues In QuickBooks Desktop
• Adjust Your Inventory Quantity Or Value In QuickBooks Desktop

Please don't hesitate to reach out to the Community again if you need anything else, jrfarrow. We're available 24/7 to answer questions and help make sure you get the support you need. 

I spoke to someone in the offshore QB help team who was no use at all. Told me the version I'm using (2011 pro) is old and I should upgrade.