Balance forward that shouldn't exist shows on customer statement

Thank you for responding. I may be looking for it in the wrong place, but I haven't been able to locate any unapplied payments for $166 that could be assigned to the bad debt account. I can enter a payment to the customer's account dated 12/31/2016 and that eliminates the 2017 opening balance. However, the customer didn't actually make that payment, so this seems like sweeping the problem under the rug.

I went back to the customer's 2016 invoice and reentered the $166 charge (it had changed to zero when I transferred it to bad debt, although it doesn't show up in the bad debt account now), with the idea that this would then create an amount due of $166, which I could transfer to the bad debt account. However, the account shows an available credit of $144 that shouldn't exist, so QB won't let me transfer the $166 to bad debt without first applying the available credit. Checking the other customer accounts, almost all of them show available credits that shouldn't exist. Any idea what might be causing this? Clearly, there's a lot I don't grasp about how QB operates (my previous experience was with GnuCash).

Thank you,
Terry

Run an open balance report on your customer so you can see what shows as open.

Quick Books created a customer statement credit that doesn't exist.  The customer's account balance is zero but now every month the statement shows a credit of 229.50.  This started a few months ago and that payment was back in 2015 and had been applied correctly in 2015. If I go to the customer's receive payments window it shows the credit at the bottom but the apply credit at the top is not active so there is no way to apply it.  How do I fix this?

I've got you covered today, Arose2.

 

Let's check for possible data damage in your company file. This can be the reason why there's a customer statement credit of 229.50 shows on your statement. Isolated issues like this can be fixed by downloading the QuickBooks Tool Hub. This tool is designed to automatically diagnose and fix common issues within the software.

 

Below are the instructions on how to do it:

 

1. Close QuickBooks.
2. Download the most recent version (1.4.0.0) of the QuickBooks Tool Hub. Save the file somewhere you can easily find it.
3. Open the file you downloaded (QuickBooksToolHub.exe).
4. Follow the on-screen steps to install and agree to the terms and conditions.
5. When the install finishes, double-click the icon on your Windows desktop to open the tool hub.
6. Once the  QuickBooks Tool Hub is open, select Program Problems.
7. Select Quick Fix my Program.
8. Start QuickBooks Desktop and open your data file.

If this doesn't work, we can try using the Rebuild Data tool in QuickBooks Desktop. This tool is used to fix any possible data damage within your company file. Let me show you the steps on how to perform this below:

1. From the File menu.
2. Click on Utilities.
3. Select Rebuild Data/ Verify Data.
   

Keep me posted for additional questions regarding this topic or any other concerns about QuickBooks. I'd be more than happy to help. Wishing you the best of luck.