How do I apply a finance charge or late fee

Hi langesmn!

Good news for you because QuickBooks has a feature that automatically calculates late fees or finance charges on overdue invoices. It can be a fixed amount or a percentage of the remaining balance per invoice, week, or month.

Once set up, the condition will be applied to future invoices that become overdue and exceed the grace period. They will have an additional late fee item, and their balances will be updated. All you need to do is send the updated invoice to your customer to make them aware that a late fee has been added to their invoices. Please check out this article for more information: Apply late fees to overdue invoices automatically in QuickBooks Online.

To enable to feature:

1. Go to the Gear icon and choose Accounts and settings.
2. Choose Sales and click the Late fees section.
3. Click the Switch icon and set the conditions. The instructions are straightforward, but let me know if you have questions.
4. Click Save, and then Done.

If you don't want to send out updated invoices manually, you can enable the Reminder feature and set strategic date of when to send a reminder. For example, if your invoice has a 5-day grace period, you can set the invoice reminder to be sent 6 days after the due date.

Let me know how I can help you handle late fees further, so we can make the most of the feature. Have a good one!

It did not charge a late fee the day after.

Can I charge and print a late fee the same day I create it, or do I have to wait for the next day for it to show up?

Thanks for following up with the Community, langesmn-gmail-c.

If you scheduled your late fee to apply the day after an invoice becomes overdue, but it didn't apply to overdue invoices as you instructed it to, I'd recommend double-checking your late fee settings.

Here's how:
 

1. Use the Gear icon, then go to Account and settings.
2. Access your Sales tab.
3. Find the Late fees section and click its Edit (✎) icon.
4. Confirm your Default charge applied to overdue invoices option is turned on.
5. Review the settings, specifically your Frequency drop-down and Grace Period selections.
6. Make any necessary changes.
7. If changes were made, select Save.

With the automatic late fees feature, you can only apply late fees to overdue invoices. The fee will be applied according to how you set its Frequency and Grace Period options.

If you'd like to manually create and charge a fee to a customer, you also have the option of creating a service item to represent your fee, then you can add it to their invoice.

Please don't hesitate to send a reply if there's any additional questions. Have an awesome Monday!

For accrual-based accounting, the automated finance charges need to be posted to invoices in the current/open accounting month (not the original invoice date), but QBO adds the finance charge back to the invoice date only.  That process throws off closed financial statements if an invoice is over 30 days past due.  Even when the month is marked as "closed" in the Advanced setup. Does QBO have a solution for this issue?

I'm here to share some details about the finance charge, sal74.

In QuickBooks Online (QBO), the late fee feature is designed to be applied to invoices based on their original date, rather than the current date. If you need to apply a late fee to an invoice that was created several months ago and your books are closed for that period, it is advisable to create a new invoice in the current period specifically for the late fee amount. This way, you can accurately reflect the late fee in the appropriate accounting period.

Alternatively, you can manually add the late fee to the invoice. You can do this by editing the invoice and adding the late fee as a separate line item.

You can count on me if you need help managing your sales  transactions in QuickBooks. I'm always here to help you out.

The issue is with late fees that belong to a past due invoice, that are charged on a monthly basis, adding a new entry to an invoice's original date throws off the closed financials. A finance software should have the ability to make future adjustments and post the entry to the current open month, so prior closed months are not affected.  Having to manually shut off the finance charge automation for a late-paying client, and manually creating a new invoice for just the late fee then causes a new problem.  The next time a late fee is due for these 2 past-due invoices, the automation won't apply the selected rate to the total amount due.  Basically, the QBO answer for automated late fees doesn't work if you're on accrual. In the event the invoice is 30+ days past due, you have to turn off the automation and create separate/manual invoices.  QBO should have an allowance for a future update to an invoice to be 'posted/dated' for the date of our choosing - either the invoice date or today's date, for example.

Having the ability to make future adjustments and post entries to the current open month without affecting prior closed months is great, sal74.

I see that the current process of manually shutting off finance charge automation and creating separate/manual invoices for late fees is not ideal for you. For now, I encourage sending your detailed feedback to our product engineers and any additional suggestions you may have.

Your insights are invaluable in helping us improve our software and provide a better user experience for you and our other customers.

1. Go to the Gear icon.
2. Select Feedback under Profile.
   
3. Enter your suggestion. Then, click Next.

Still, I recommend check the article shared by my colleague above. This articles contains information about setting up the late fees for your customers and help you ensure that you are properly compensated for any overdue payments.

Please feel free to reach out again and share your thoughts about handling invoices. We'll be around to help in any way that we can. 

I really don't know who QuickBooks Online have developing things but I'm quite sure they only ran a paper route.  They just don't have a clue about real world business issues.  This Late Fees feature is 100% completely unusable for any decentl size company.  I have no clue when they think people actually close their months.  The ones who do probably close around the 15th to 20th of the following month at the latest.  The question is how come they don't understand why this feature sucks.  

Another one.. Do you think they can ever add time-based discount terms for vendors like Enterprise and most others have?  I bet they don't have a clue why this saves so much time for again decent size companies. Its just so embarrassing,

That would be great - EXCEPT on my late fee set up screen, it does not have the option at the bottom to make it taxable or not.  So, it is making it taxable even though the service that it is being applied to is non-taxable or the customer is marked as tax-exempt.

We've got the information you need, @BWAquatics.

I've seen that you've posted twice in this forum with the same concern. Don't worry, my colleague has already provided a solution for you to guide you in managing late fees in QuickBooks Online. Feel free to visit this link: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/reports-and-accounting/why-does-quickbooks-online-...

 We'll keep this thread available for any additional queries you have when managing late fees in your account. Keep safe.

Hi @langesmn-gmail-c, QuickBooks Online does allow for basic late fee functionality, letting you set a fixed amount late fee (eg $10) or a fixed percentage late fee (eg 10% of total) of the overdue balance on invoices. This is helpful for simple setups where you only need straightforward, one-time charges.

However, if you’re looking to apply more complex finance charges, such as annualized interest rates that accumulate monthly across multiple overdue invoices for the same customer, you’ll need a more advanced tool.

Paidnice, for example, integrates seamlessly with QuickBooks and enables you to:

• Apply annualized interest rates on overdue amounts, calculating them on a monthly basis.
• Automate these charges across multiple invoices for a customer, keeping a running balance of accrued late fees.
• Set custom grace periods, compounding options, and variable rates, adapting to both your business needs and specific client arrangements.

This approach not only enhances the precision of your finance charges but also ensures late fees are consistently applied and communicated without manual input, streamlining the accounts receivable process significantly.