How do I make it so "Long-term Deferred Revenue" account will show up in Statement of Cash Flow as Operating Cash Flow instead of 'Financing Activity'

Thank you for the detailed information, @romaster.

I'm glad to share with you some information about the Statement of Cash Flow report in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

QuickBooks reports are dependent on the transactions you've entered and the accounts linked with them.

With the cash flow statement, you're given the entire data regarding all cash inflows a company receives from its ongoing operations and external investment sources. It also includes all cash outflows that pay for business activities and investments during a given period. Meaning, it reflects all of the operating, investing, and financing activities.

The financing activities inflow reflects money that’s borrowed and the proceeds from the sale of your company’s securities. Outflow includes your debt service and dividend payments. While the operating activities refer to the day-to-day activities of managing a business. Centerfield has cash inflows for customer payments, and cash outflows to purchase materials, and to fund payroll.

If you want to make any changes to your accounts (account and detail types), I would highly recommend working with a professional accountant. This way, we can ensure that your records are safe and accurate.

Moreover, I'm adding these links for additional information about the statement of cash flows:

• A Guide to Cash Flow Statements with Template
• How to Prepare a Cash Flow Statement
• How to prepare and analyze a statement of cash flows

You can as well open the Run reports in QuickBooks Online article in case you need help in running and customizing your reports in QBO.

Please keep me posted if you have any other questions about QuickBooks or cash flows. I'm more than happy to help. Thanks for coming, have a great day!

Hi Angela - that is helpful and I am familiar with how the reports work based on transactions.

The reality is There does NOT seem to be a way to re-classify an account to show up in my statement of cash flows based on whether I believe it to be an Operative, Investing, or Financing cash flow.

In my specific example - we get paid on a 3 year deal all at once.

That is *not* a financing cash flow as you can appreciate, that is an operating cash flow.

However- anything in "long term" doesn't give me the option to classify it as whether it's operating, investing, or financing. 

On my balance sheet, it's listed in the correct place.

On my SCF, there is no user feature to do this. I know there is one on the QB desktop enterprise. But not online. 

Hi Angela - that is helpful and I am familiar with how the reports work based on transactions.

The reality is There does NOT seem to be a way to re-classify an account to show up in my statement of cash flows based on whether I believe it to be an Operative, Investing, or Financing cash flow.

In my specific example - we get paid on a 3 year deal all at once.

That is *not* a financing cash flow as you can appreciate, that is an operating cash flow.

However- anything in "long term" doesn't give me the option to classify it as whether it's operating, investing, or financing. 

On my balance sheet, it's listed in the correct place.

On my SCF, there is no user feature to do this. I know there is one on the QB desktop enterprise. But not online. 

Hello, @romaster.

Let me share additional information on how QuickBooks Online handles your statement of cash flow.

Currently, the report run is based on an accrual basis accounting method. Also, the ability to change it to cash basis method more or reclassify cash flow activities is currently not available in QuickBooks Online Simple Start, Essentials, and Plus version. However, you can map your cash flows in QuickBooks Online Advanced version.

First, you'd want to check the Account type and Category type of the account used in tracking your deferred revenue transactions. I've added a screenshot of how your chart of accounts can be sorted by Activities:

• Operating Activities 

   

• Investing Activities
• Financing Activities

   

Here's how to view your account details:

1. Go to the Accounting menu.
2. Choose the Chart of Accounts tab.
3. Locate the account used in tracking your "Long-Deferred Revenue" transactions.
4. From the Action column, click the drop-down.
5. Select Edit.

From the account page, you can see its details and compare it to the chart I've provided. 

Lastly, I'd recommend consulting your accountant so you'd be guided in mapping your business-related transactions and chart of accounts in QuickBooks. 

Get back to us here if you have other questions about creating your statement of cash flow in QuickBooks. I'm always here to help.

Hi - Thank you for this detailed summary.

You mention that re-classifying activities is possible - and I do use Advanced, but in following your steps - i see no way to reclassify my account into a different cash flow type.

That is what I need to do.

I need to keep the account in "Long Term Liabilities" Category Type - but to define that it goes into "Operating" activities.

From what I see on QBO Advanced, anything classified in Long Term Liabilities always goes into "Financing" activities. This is a major flaw.

Thanks for coming back to the Community, romaster.

I appreciate following the steps shared by my peer and sharing its result. Based on the details, you can export the report to Excel and manually move the data from the Operating Cash Flow to Financing Activity.

Here’s how:

1. Go to the Reports menu on the left panel and enter Statement of Cash Flows in the search field.
2. Click the Report period drop-down to set the correct date range.
3. Hit the Export icon and pick Export to Excel.
4. From there, customize the data displayed on the statement.

For more insights into this process, check out this article: Export reports, lists, and other data from QuickBooks Online.

As always, I suggest consulting an accountant to help reclassify the transactions. They can recommend the correct account and category type to use for the entries. This, you’ll no longer have to manually refine the Statement of Cash Flows. I invite you to visit the ProAdvisor site to find one.

In case you’ll add the account for your transactions, this guide outlines the complete instructions: Add an account to your chart of accounts.

Don’t hesitate to leave a comment below if you still need help with QuickBooks. I’ll be around to lend a helping hand. Have a great rest of the day.

Thanks. I realize and understand I can do this in excel. The question was can I do this with the online software in the web interface.

The apparent answer is I cannot.

Is there a way to request this feature? I am not the first one to request it nor the last.

Alternatively - is there a way to request a new account type be created BY quickbooks on the backend that goes into Long-Term, but isn't auto-classed into Financing.

Thanks for posting here again, @romaster,

At the moment, the preference you're looking for is currently unavailable. For now, you can follow the suggestions from my colleagues on this thread.

Please know that you can share your suggestion within the program. Follow the steps below:

1. Click the Gear icon and choose Feedback.
2. Enter your suggestion for our engineers on the Feedback box.
3. Once done, press Next to send it.

Our product engineers working internally with product enhancements to make QuickBooks more efficient to use.

To be updated with the recent and upcoming changes for QuickBooks products, visit these sites:

• QuickBooks New Features and Innovations
• What's New in QBO?

Visit us again if you have other questions about QuickBooks. I'll be more than happy to help you with it. Have a lovely day!