Customer payments not showing up as income

I'm glad you made it here, CcSML.

You'll want to create a Sales Receipt to record the customer payments in QuickBooks Desktop. This way, amounts from the transaction will show up in your Profit & Loss. Also, make sure to use the correct bank to which it will be deposit.

To do that:

1. Go to the Customers menu.
2. Choose Create a Sales Receipt, 
3. Fill in the information you want to prefill on your next sales receipt.
4. Click Save and close.

Then, you can run the Transaction List by Customer report to review the payments you've made. You can make necessary changes if needed. Here's how:

1. Click on Reports at the top menu bar.
2. Choose Customers & Receivables.
3. Press on Transaction List by Customer.
4. Customize the dates of the report.
5. Tap on Customize report to customize the transaction type to Payment.
6. Go to the Filter column.
7. Look for Transaction Type.
8. Select Payment.
9. Click OK. 

To learn more about running and customizing reports in QBDT, you may check these articles:  

• Understand reports 
• Profit and Loss report does not match a sales report

I'm always here whenever you have questions about managing profit and loss reports. Have a nice day!

Hi, CcSML.

Hope you’re doing great. I wanted to see how everything is going about customer payments not showing an income that you had the other day. Was it resolved? Do you need any additional help or clarification? If you do, just let me know. I’d be happy to help you at any time.

Looking forward to your reply. Have a pleasant day ahead!

I am having the same problem as the original poster. I have done the following: 

1) Create invoice

2) Receive customer payment : Deposit to Undeposited Funds

3) Record Deposit to Business Checking. 

the problem is, it does not show up in my report "Profit & Loss" as income.

What am I doing wrong?

Your confusion ends here, @repplumbing.

Allow me to fill you in on everything you need to know about how income and expense transactions show in the Profit and Loss report.

One of the possible reasons why your customer payments aren't showing in the Profit and Loss report is how the accounting basis is set. Please know that the difference between cash basis and accrual basis reporting is how the date is determined for reporting the income or expense. To verify, let's change the report basis on the report. Here's how:

1. Go to the Reports menu.
2. Select Company & Financial, then choose Profit & Loss Detail.
3. On the report, change the Report Basis and click Refresh.
4. Once done, verify if the customer payments show as income.

In addition, when you receive payment from a customer, that only affects Accounts Receivable and your bank account. Also, if you don’t use the invoice or receive payments entry method, but instead record deposits, those should show as long as the deposit is affecting an income account.

I'm adding this article to understand more about the reports: Understand reports.

Should you need any assistance getting your income shown on the report, I'm available here to help any time!

Hello Mark, 

Thank you for taking the time to address my questions. 

I have now found that certain payments received are not showing up on my P&L "Income" because they originated as an invoice from the Retentions Receivable  account which is set up as an Other Current Asset account. 

How do I get my system to recognize that the Retentions Receivable, once paid to my company is income?

I apologize if this sounds redundant. Thank you for your help.

Thanks for adding a clarification, @repplumbing.

Once you used the Other Current Asset account when setting up Retentions Receivable, the P&L report won't recognize it as an income. Make sure to select an income account in the drop-down (see attached screen).

If you want to change its account type, follow these steps: 

1. Go to the List menu and select Chart of accounts. 
2. Look for the Retentions Receivable account, then press CTRL+E to edit the account.
3. In the Account Type drop-down menu, select Income.
4. Click Save and Close.
5. Once prompted, select Yes.

When you're done, this will automatically reflect on your reports. '

You can also customize your P&L report to get a better view of your business. If you want to use the same settings of customized reports in the future, you can memorize them.

That should do it. Please let me know if you have any further questions regarding this process. I'll be here to guide you.

Apologies for jumping on this thread, but I've got a similar situation.

We are a law firm that bills clients using another software; I then post invoices in QB using services linked to "Income" for each attorney. For example, John Smith bills 4.5 hours at $400/hour, Jane Doe bills 2.4 hours at $415/hour. When the payment comes in, it's applied using "payment received" and then deposited to the appropriate bank account.

Until recently, the income accounts on the (accrual) P&L were updating as they should. However, since mid-April, no new payments have updated. The payments are there on cash basis, but the partner who views the reports is used to accrual basis numbers (former bookkeeper didn't understand the difference - I took over in November and didn't want to confuse him).

Any suggestions on how to fix it?

Hi there, cravingstarbucks.

Normally, income received for your company should update on your Profit & Loss reports. May I know, how many companies you have? Are you opening the correct company file for your business? This is to make sure that we can properly address your concern.

Please let me know if you have any other concerns. I'll always be here to further assist you.

Is there a way to have them use income accounts?

What would be a better way to receive a payment then? 

We create an invoice, the customers pays it, we deposit the check, then go to the invoice in QB and select "receive payment."

But I need to classify this payment to show on my P&L as which type of income it is. Any suggestions?

Hi - I see there are some good answers to the same problem I'm having, wherein bank deposits are not appearing on my P&L but I must still be missing something. Here's an example: The invoice for a particular customer and order was generated in April, for a total of $5400. And that does appear on my April accrual-based P&L report under the "accounts receivable" account.  However, there are always discounts that are applied to these invoices. The actual payment amount, received in June, was $4860. To record that, I first edited the original invoice to add the discount, and then "received payment" for the $4860 into undeposited funds, and then did a bank deposit for the $4860. However, that deposit doesn't appear on either the cash or accrual P&L for June.  What should I have done differently? I would think that the deposit would appear on the cash-basis P&L for June.

Hello there, @plugumes.

Let me share some insights about showing the payment you received from your customer. 

The Profit and Loss (P&L) reports show the summary of the overall income and expenses of your business.  To view the detailed transaction, you can run the P&L Detail report and customize it to the date the payment is received, it will then show in the Income/Expenses portion as Income and Discount Invoice.

Since you want to see the bank deposit you created, run the Balance Sheet Detail report. You can view the transaction you made from where it was credited and debited, and the bank account it was deposited. Just ensure that the Date range is correct.

If you want to format the layout of your report so the right date shows up in the right place, check out this article: Customize reports in QuickBooks Desktop.

I'm thrilled to have you here. Please come back if you have additional questions so I can assist you further. Thank you, and have a good day!

Hi Bryan,

Thanks so much for your quick response. I did what you suggested - ran the P&L Detail Report for 6/13/23. On the accrual based report, neither the invoice nor the payment show up on that report. On the cash based report, the original invoice amount shows up as "invoice", but nowhere do I see an entry for "discount invoice", nor do I see the actual deposit of $4860. Any thoughts on what I'm missing? I wanted to add a couple of screenshots to this response, but can't see how to do that. It says I must be signed in to do so. Anyway, I appreciate your time in helping me with this issue.

Best,

Phil

Hello, @plugumes. 

I'd be pleased to help you see the customer payment on your QuickBooks.

You can create a Transaction List by Customer report and then customize it to see the invoice payments. I'll show you how.

1. Choose Reports at the top menu bar.
2. Click Customers & Receivables.
3. Press on Transaction List by Customer.
4. Customize the dates of the report.
5. Tap on Customize report to customize the transaction type to Payment.
6. Go to the Filter column.
7. Look for Transaction Type.
8. Click Payment.
9. Tap OK.

Additionally, you can read through this article for more detailed steps on how you can customize built-in reports in QuickBooks to suit your business needs: Customize customer, job, and sales reports in QuickBooks Desktop.

If you don't want to use the existing report groups in QuickBooks, you can add a new one and use it for saving memorized reports.

Always feel free to swing by here if you have other questions about generating and customizing your sales-related reports. I'm always here to help.

Hi Deb,

Thanks for that info. When I go to the "transaction list by customer" report, in fact the actual payment of $4860 shows up there, both as a payment and then a deposit, so I didn't have to customize the report to see that. However, the cash-basis P&L for June still doesn't show that payment or deposit - all it continues to show is the original invoice amount. I'll keep reading yours and Brian's suggestions to see if I'm still missing a step, but again, I would think that it's the actual discounted invoice and its accompanying payment that would appear on the P&L, not the original invoice. After all, that's what the true invoice and payment were, not $5400. 

Thanks.

I just realized that (of course) the discount itself appears on the P&L report under "discounts". Why didn't I think of that before wasting yours and Brian's time with my uneducated question? Now that I see this, I think I'm good to go on this issue. Thanks again for jumping in to help.