Incoming Commission Tracking - How to track upcoming commissions for cash flow reporting, but receive them at a later date without an invoice

@awats 

Are you a cash basis taxpayer?  If so, and your books are set to cash basis, then you can create an invoice and date it for the date you expect to be paid the commission.  QuickBooks ignores the invoice date for booking income when you're on cash basis and only books the income when you receive the payment. 

On the other hand, if you're an accrual basis taxpayer, income is booked as of the invoice date.  But, you should not create an invoice if you're an accrual basis taxpayer until the "all-events test" has been met - when all events fixing your right to receive the income have been met.  In the case of the hotel commission, that doesn't happen until you're entitled to the commission per your agreement with the hotel which, presumably, is some time after the guest stays at the hotel. 

@Rainflurry thanks for your response! We are an accrual basis taxpayer, which makes sense why we shouldn't invoice it until we actually receive the commissions. 

However, do you know of a way that we can track those commissions within Quickbooks for forecasting and budgeting purposes? Specifically I'm looking for some kind of pro forma cash flow statement. 

Allow me to chime in and provide more information about tracking your commission, awats.

QuickBooks Online doesn't have a feature for calculating sales commissions. However, you can track your commission using the Class Tracking and Location Tracking feature. Let's turn on the Class or Location features. I'll show you how.

1. Go to the Gear icon, then Accounts and Settings.
2. Select the Advanced from the left navigation menu.
3. Click the Edit pencil icon under the Categories section.
4. Put a checkmark on the Track Classes or Track Locations checkmark boxes.
5. Hit Save, then Done.

After that, you can create a Class or Location list. Just go to the Gear icon again and select All Lists. Then, you can either choose Classes or Locations. When you enter transactions, you'll see fields for Class or Location. You can then select the salesperson who is associated with that transaction.

If you receive your commission without an invoice, you can record it as a bank deposit and link it to an invoice. Check out this article for more details: How to link a bank deposit to an invoice.

I'm also sharing this resource about tracking your cash flow for future reference: Track your cash flow in QuickBooks Online.

I appreciate you taking the time to contact the Community forums. If you have any further questions about tracking commissions, please let us know. We're always here to assist you.