I have two estimates that are marked "open balance" even though I have entered the payments. See Photo. Thanks.

katyo24 · ‎January 30, 2019

IamjuViel · ‎January 30, 2019

Appreciate the screenshot you've provided, @katyo24.

I'm here to help walk you through clearing out the open balance in your customer's account. Let's get started!

Creating an estimate is one of the process in the workflow for recording your business' accounts receivables in QuickBooks Desktop. Here's the workflow:

Please be inform that even if you have recorded a customer payments in QuickBooks, it is not a guarantee that your customer's balance will be cleared or zero out. A payment cannot be applied directly to an estimate since it is a non-posting transaction. You'll have to create an invoice to record the sales transactions after your customer accepts the estimate you've sent to them.

To zero out your customer's balance, here's how:

Open the estimate.
Click Create Invoice button.
Choose Create invoice for the entire estimate.
Review the details of the invoice.
Click Save and Close.

To pay the invoice, here's how:

Open the invoice.
Click on Receive Payments.
In the Customer Payment window, review the payee information.
Put a check mark on the invoice that will paid.
Click on Save and Close.

That should do it! This should get you on the right track of accurately managing your accounts receivables in QuickBooks Desktop. Wishing you continued success!

View solution in original post

qbteachmt · ‎January 31, 2019

@IamjuViel

Please Learn from this input.

@katyo24

Estimates are Planning tools. They are neither Paid or Not Paid. They represent the Plan; Sales get paid. What you show is an Open Estimate that was not used for Progress Invoicing, which is fine. You can use Estimate internally or to present to the customer. You can then Charge them from an SO or Actual Billable time & costs. Once you are Done, then, you open that Estimate and at the top, click on Make Inactive = Done.

Not everything you can add to Columns on Lists or reports, applies to everything you see there. Open Balance does not Apply to Estimates and to Checks you write, for example. Checks have no Paid Status, but on reports, they always show as Unpaid. They are just checks.

View solution in original post

IamjuViel · ‎January 30, 2019

Appreciate the screenshot you've provided, @katyo24.

I'm here to help walk you through clearing out the open balance in your customer's account. Let's get started!

Creating an estimate is one of the process in the workflow for recording your business' accounts receivables in QuickBooks Desktop. Here's the workflow:

Please be inform that even if you have recorded a customer payments in QuickBooks, it is not a guarantee that your customer's balance will be cleared or zero out. A payment cannot be applied directly to an estimate since it is a non-posting transaction. You'll have to create an invoice to record the sales transactions after your customer accepts the estimate you've sent to them.

To zero out your customer's balance, here's how:

Open the estimate.
Click Create Invoice button.
Choose Create invoice for the entire estimate.
Review the details of the invoice.
Click Save and Close.

To pay the invoice, here's how:

Open the invoice.
Click on Receive Payments.
In the Customer Payment window, review the payee information.
Put a check mark on the invoice that will paid.
Click on Save and Close.

That should do it! This should get you on the right track of accurately managing your accounts receivables in QuickBooks Desktop. Wishing you continued success!

qbteachmt · ‎January 31, 2019

@IamjuViel

Please Learn from this input.

@katyo24

Estimates are Planning tools. They are neither Paid or Not Paid. They represent the Plan; Sales get paid. What you show is an Open Estimate that was not used for Progress Invoicing, which is fine. You can use Estimate internally or to present to the customer. You can then Charge them from an SO or Actual Billable time & costs. Once you are Done, then, you open that Estimate and at the top, click on Make Inactive = Done.

Not everything you can add to Columns on Lists or reports, applies to everything you see there. Open Balance does not Apply to Estimates and to Checks you write, for example. Checks have no Paid Status, but on reports, they always show as Unpaid. They are just checks.

Cabrillo-PV · ‎March 14, 2023

Hi,

We have the same issue with the estimates showing an open balance after the invoices were created. That only happened to some estimates and not all. Please advise what might cause this issue. Please see example.

Angelyn_T · ‎March 14, 2023

Hi, @Cabrillo-PV. Thank you for adding a visual interpretation of your estimate entries to this thread. Let me look into this for you so you can clear the open balance of your transaction.

An estimate is a non-posting entry. From this, you can create an invoice, sales order, and purchase order. The Open Balance calculates each time you create an invoice from the estimate. Recording invoice payments will zero it out.

Open your estimate.
Tap on the open balance amount.
Open each invoice from the Customer Open Balance report.
Record the payment, then save the transaction.

I'm adding this article for more hints about tracking invoice payments in our system: Record an invoice payment.

After that, your Open Balance should display 0.00 under the Summary section.

Aside from estimates, you can also learn more about the different ways of tracking customer or AR entries in QBDT from this article: Get started with customer transaction workflows in QuickBooks Desktop.

Feel free to mention my name in the comment section below if you have follow-up questions. I'll get back to you as soon as I can help you again. Have a good one!

deb200 · ‎August 08, 2024

same exact issue, but I don't think we are getting a response on what causes this

VoltF · ‎August 08, 2024

I understand the impact of the situation where completed estimates still appear as an open balance on your business operations, Deb200. Let me discuss some information on how to handle this.

Given that you've performed the initial workaround provided in the previous posts, I recommend contacting our Customer Support Team for additional to address your concern further.

To contact our Customer Support Team, please follow these steps:

Open QuickBooks.
Go to Help, then click QuickBooks Desktop Help/Contact Us.
Select Contact Us.
Give a brief description of your issue, then click Continue.
Sign in to your Intuit account, click Continue, and then Continue with my account.
- If you don't already have an account, select Create a new account.
We'll email you a single-use code. Enter your code and click Continue.
- If you have more than one account, select the account you want to use and then Continue.
Choose to chat with us or Have us call you.

The support hours for Plus, Premier Plus, and Desktop for Mac are Monday to Friday, 6 AM to 6 PM, and Saturdays at 6 AM to 3 PM, while for Enterprise, support is available anytime any day. Please refer to the outlined article, which includes the direct phone number for QuickBooks Desktop support.

In the meantime, you may refer to this article to learn ways to track customer transactions in QuickBooks Desktop: Get started with customer transaction workflows in QuickBooks Desktop.

Please tag my name in your reply on the Community forum for further inquiries about payment recording-related concerns in QuickBooks Desktop. I'm more than willing to assist you further. Have a pleasant day!

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I have two estimates that are marked "open balance" even though I have entered the payments. See Photo. Thanks.