Negative Account Balances Under "Quickbooks Customer"

Allow me to help you correct your Accounts Receivable, RTNPublishing. 

The negative balance is from the overpayments or credits. You'll have to check if these are duplicates or not.

Then, check if there should be an invoice to apply it to. Create one if needed.

Here's how:

First, you'll need to record your vendor's credit.

1. From the Vendors menu, select Enter Bills.
2. Select the Credit radio button.
3. Enter the Vendor's name.
4. Click the Items Tab.
5. Enter the items with the same amounts as the refund check.
6. Click Save & Close.

Once done, you can now link the deposit to the vendor's credit you've setup:

1. From the Vendors menu, select Pay Bills.
2. Check the Deposit that matches the Vendor check amount.
3. Select Set Credits.
4. Apply the Bill Credit you created earlier then click Done.
5. Click Pay Selected Bills.

Once done, that should conform to customers' account balances. Refer to these articles to learn more about running an A/R Aging report and how to write off uncollectable balances:

• AR balance on the Chart of Accounts does not match the AR balance on reports
• Write off bad debt in QuickBooks Desktop
• Understand reports

Feel free to visit us again if you have any other questions. The Community team is always here to help.

Thanks for the reply. I need to make sure I have this straight. These negative balances are showing up in a generic "Quickbooks Customer" account that we have never created. It has showed up for a small number of our credit card payment transactions from customers but a very small number of them. We've been accepting credit card payments and making deposits the same way for a long time with no problems, until now of course.

Your solution is to record a vendor's credit but these are customers paying us that seems to be causing the problem, not a bill from a vendor or us paying a vendor. I just want to make I understand you and do not make things worse by doing this. Thanks.

Thank you for getting back to us, @RTNPublishing. Happy to chime in.

The Accounts Receivable Aging Summary report shows the total customer's outstanding balances and how long they're past due. Negative balances are usually the result of customers' credits or overpayments. I'd suggest checking the associated transactions to check the overpayments.

1. From the A/R Aging Summary report, double-click the negative amount. It opens the A/R Aging QuickZoom report.
2. Open the payment that shows an open balance.
3. From there, you can verify the payment amount entered.

There are three options in handling the credit:

• Retain as an available credit 
• Give a refund
• Apply to an invoice

For more information, check out this link: Give your customer a credit or refund.

Please let me know if you have any follow-up questions. I'll be here if you need further assistance. Have a wonderful day

Hi LeraMarie,

This makes more sense and thanks for the input. We have some credits which are applied directly to a specific customer that chose to pre-pay for an advertisements. The credits that concern me are not applied to any specific customer. I've attached 2 screenshots that will hopefully explain it better than I am. As you can see there is no specific customer that I can apply the credit to. Thanks for any input on solving this.

Thanks for the post. Your answer makes more sense to me but when I tried to apply the open credit, there is no specific customer to apply it to. They are under a generic name of Quickbooks Customer, an account we did not create. I've attached 2 screenshots that will hopefully help explain it. Thanks.

Thanks for getting back to us regarding this Accounts Receivable balance concern, @RTNPublishing.

There are a few ways to correct this negative balance in your account. If these entries were already in the register and is showing a double, you can simply delete them.

Otherwise, you can create a reversal journal entry to remove the negative balance in the Accounts Receivable (A/R) report. To avoid affecting your account balances, you can use a clearing account for the journal entry amounts.

To create a clearing or wash account, use these steps:

1. Go to the Lists menu, then select Chart of Accounts.
2. From the Account ▼dropdown, select New.
3. Select an account type, then select Continue.
4. Complete the account details.
5. Select Save & Close.

After creating the journal entry, you can make the clearing account inactive, so the system will zero out its balance. Here's how:

1. Go to the Lists menu, then select Chart of Accounts.
2. Right-click on the account you want to make inactive, then select Edit Account.
3. Select the Account is inactive checkbox.
4. Select Save & Close.

Learn how to manage your chart of accounts and correct A/R balances, using the following links: 

• Add, edit, or delete accounts in QuickBooks Desktop
• Resolve AR and AP balances on the cash basis Balance Sheet

If you need further help with correcting the A/R balances or need further help with the steps, let me know in the comments below. I'll be more than happy to help. All the best!

I appreciate the input and this sounds like the solution. I'll try this and see if it works.