How do I get my paid invoices to show up as income under transactions?

Good day to you, julienailahnandi,

Let's categorize those paid invoices by categorizing them under business income. This makes sure the right money is included in financial reports and Schedule C.

Once those invoice payments are downloaded on your Transactions tab, you can categorize them as an income. I'm glad to show you how:

1. Go to the Transactions menu.
2. Find a transaction on the list.
3. Select Business if the transaction was for business. 
4. Review the category in the Category column. QuickBooks tries to categorize transactions for you.
5. If you need to change the category, select the category link.
6. Select a general type, and choose a more detailed category.

Feel free to read through this article: Categorize transactions in QuickBooks Self-Employed to learn how to track your invoices.

Let me know if you need additional information by commenting below. I'm always right here to help.

Hi, this does not meet my needs because there are no transactions to choose from. I do not have a linked business account. 

I generated the invoice under the invoice tab. Now that i have marked it paid, why does it not show up under profits or in transactions?

I've got some steps on how to get your paid invoices to show up as income under the Transactions page, julienailahnandi.

The invoicing feature in QuickBooks Self-Employed (QBSE) is for tracking purposes only. If you connected your bank account, QBSE will automatically download the payment transaction.

If not, just transfer the invoices as an income by manually adding and categorizing the payment. Let me show you how: 

1. Go to the Transactions tab.
2. Tick the Add transaction button.
3. Add the date of the payment under DATE.
4. Enter a brief description of the transaction. 
5. Type the amount under AMOUNT. 
6. Select a category for the transaction (in this particular case, we want to select Income). 
7. Press Save. 

Once done adding, it will show in the total income for the year. 

For more details about this one, check out this article: Manually add transactions in QuickBooks Self-Employed.

To learn more about creating an invoice and what happens when you send it, refer to these articles:

• What happens when you send an invoice?
• Create an invoice in QuickBooks Self-Employed

Visit our Financial reports page for more insights about running reports in managing your business. 

That'll point you out in the right direction today. I'm just one reply away if you need a hand with categorizing your transactions. I'll be here to ensure your success. Have a great day ahead. 

Hi,

What you have described is manually adding the transaction or in other words, re-entering the same information I have already entered for the invoice.  

Why do the paid invoices not just automatically transfer? Why do I have to re-enter? This seems like a serious design flaw and defeats the purpose of me getting QuickBooks. The point of having QuickBooks was to make things simpler, not to have to enter things twice. 

Very disappointing and doesn't solve the problem. 

I appreciate your questions about the paid invoices in QBSE, @julienailahnandi. I'm here to share more insights about how the invoicing feature works in QuickBooks. 

 It's a sales form that serves as a document to bill your customer and to help you keep track of their payment. It will only be acknowledged or accounted for income after you categorize the actual payment/deposit in QuickBooks. 

Since you don't have a bank account connected in the system, you'll have to add the transaction (deposit) manually and categorize it accordingly. You can follow the steps shared by my peer @RCV above. 

For future reference, read through this article: Schedule C and expense categories in QuickBooks Self-Employed. It'll help you learn about how schedule C categories show up your financial reports. 

Feel free to message again if you have additional questions. We're always here to help in any way we can. 

I have this exact issue -- I just want my paid invoices to show up as profits, it seems like several unnecessary extra steps to then have to export them and re-import and categorize them for them to show up across the same system -- why doesn't the system talk to itself?

This is so convoluted and seems like QB is just forcing us to give you access to all of our banking transactions.

For as much as this costs it’s ridiculous that we can’t just count paid invoices as Income.

I am also experiencing this same issue. Is there anyway to have these invoices show up as a transaction? Seems kind of silly I have to re-create each invoice as a transaction... I also do not have a bank account connected so I cannot look these transactions up.

Any solution to this by chance? 

I have details to share to answer your questions about invoices and income in QBSE, schou1.

As you may have been informed, QuickBooks Self-Employed will only count the categorized transactions as income. The invoicing feature in QBSE is primary used to send the transaction to your customers and collect payments from them. Because of this, paid and unpaid invoices are not counted as income in the program.

However, you don't need to recreate them one by one or connect a bank to record them as income. You can create a CSV file and import it in the program. Once done, make sure to categorize them as business income so they'll show up in your Profit and Loss. I'd be glad to share all the steps with you.

First, follow the format in this article to make sure your file is compatible to import: Format CSV Files in Excel to Get Bank Transactions into QuickBooks.

Second, use these steps on how to import the transactions:

1. Go to the Profile ⚙ icon and select Imports.
2. Click Import transactions.
3. Follow the onscreen steps to upload the CSV file.
4. Select Import.

You can read more details about the steps here: Add Older Transactions to QuickBooks Self-Employed.

Once imported, go to the Transactions menu. Then, proceed to the Category column and select Income. Let me get you this article for more details: Categorize Transactions in QuickBooks Self-Employed.

Allow me to share a couple more articles for additional guidance when using QBSE:
 

• Automatically Estimate Your Income Tax in QuickBooks Self-Employed
• QuickBooks Self-Employed Overview

Please reply back to us and share updates if you're able to add them as income in QBSE. Feel free to get back here as well if you have more questions for us.

After reading through this entire thread, I was still not able to get a report of total invoices paid in for last year, which is absolutely absurd! However, I went to the invoices tab, sorted by "paid" and "last year", then selected all the data to the bottom of the page. I was able to paste it into a spreadsheet and put an autosum at the bottom of the "amount" column. Not sure why it has to be so convoluted, but there is a quick workaround if you have some basic excel knowledge!

Hello there, @enmanlandscapes.

Since the option you're trying to access isn't available inside the program, we recommend sending a feature request to our Product Development Team using the QBSE mobile application. This way, they can evaluate your suggestion and consider it for future program updates. We'll write down the steps below to get you going:

1. Access your QuickBooks Self-Employed mobile app.
2. Select Assistant.
3. Enter Feedback.
4. Enter a brief description of your suggestion.
5. Click Send.

Furthermore, here are some articles to manage transactions and export reports outside the program:

• Schedule C and expense categories in QuickBooks Solopreneur and QuickBooks Self-Employed.
• Export transactions and get reports in QuickBooks Self-Employed.

You can visit the Community space or comment below if you need assistance managing invoices inside QuickBooks. We'll be around to help you out again. Stay safe.

Not sure if this helpful but I went to the Charts of Account - Selected the Bank - Run Report - Last Financial Year - Group ( Select Transaction Type ) - Column ( Deselect unnecessary columns ) - Export / Print