Question

Invoice date & service date

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
November 22, 2018
2 replies
43 views

Hi there)

In QB online we have service date and invoice date. Is it possible to run PL report, where only the service date will be showed in Revenue section, not the invoice date.

Where I can find that settings?

QuickBooks Online

J

JamesDuanT

QuickBooks Team

Hello EkaterinaPiskunS_33,

Currently, we're unable to run the Profit and Loss Detail report that shows the service dates. I'd recommend sending feedback to our Product Development Team by clicking the Gear icon in the upper-right corner and selecting Feedback.

Meanwhile, you can customize the Sales by Product/Service Detail report. You can use this for reference while pulling up Profit and Loss Detail report.

Select Reports on the left menu and search Sales by Product/Service Detail.
Click the Customize button and go to the Rows/Columns section.
Click Change columns and put a check mark in the Service Date box.
Click Run report.

I'd also recommend reaching out to your accountant to see if they know other reports that display the data you need.

Feel free to let me know if you need anything else.

L

LFA1

We are nearly 4 years on, are QB any closer sorting the filter??

K

khurramaslam

Work Around for Showing Service Date on P & L Instead of Invoice Date

For Accrual Revenue Recognition Purposes

Create an Estimate for your customer as usual.
When it's Approved and the Service Date is set, Create a zero amount Invoice for that customer. You can list the products and services that are agreed upon from the estimate, just make sure the amount column is zero.
This will set the Date for recognizing the revenue on your Profit & Loss Statement for the actual Date of Service, not the date you get around to sending an invoice or when the client actually pays the invoice.
Then when the work is completed and you have all the information and amounts for the work, you can go to the Zero Amount Invoice and enter in the cost for the items, plus add any additional products and services that were done until the Invoice shows the correct amount.
Click Save, or Save and Send.
When it asks if you are sure you want to make changes to this, click Yes.
Done

You can run your P&L and see that your revenue is now properly recognized as of the date you actually earned it (in this case the service date). Hope this helps. 👍

I realize this is just a Band-Aid solution to a very serious flaw with QuickBooks.

I would much rather see QuickBooks add this as an actual feature / option. You should be able to select whether or not you want to recognize revenue as of service date or invoice date for cash basis vs accrual basis. It really seems like something that should have been available from the start. ❓

I really hope they add it. 🤞

This solution does not work. If you create an Estimate and convert it to an Invoice, it simply takes the estimate date and transfers it to the invoice date. The P&L report isn't using the service date, it just so happens that your invoice date is incorrect. When you send the invoice to the customer you need to update the invoice date to the current date and you will have the same problem again.

K

Klent

Level 8

Hi there, YDK.

I can share some information about how the Profit and Loss (P&L) report works in QuickBooks Online.

Please take note that when you use an accrual basis for your bookkeeping, you record income when you sell or ship an item. You count expenses when you obtain a purchase. The original transaction and the time money changes hands are separate events for accounting purposes.

If you set your P&L report to an accrual basis, it will show all your income regardless of whether your customers have paid your invoices. Additionally, the date that would reflect on this report is the actual date when you created the invoice.

To ensure that the dates on your financial report reflect your real-life business activities, you'll want to issue the invoice right after you provide the service or sell the product.

Additionally, here some articles that you can read to help streamline the reporting process and get the most out of QuickBooks’ financial reporting capabilities:

Do you have any other questions in mind? Feel free to leave them below and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

Y

YDK

Thank you for your quick response

But I think that my question still stands. According to accrual accounting you earn the money when the service is rendered not when you create the invoice so the P&L should reflect the service date not the invoice date?

I create the invoice when the customer orders the service and I get paid before the service is rendered so I enter the invoice date on the date that I send out the invoice and I enter the service date to reflect the date the service is provided. I think the P&L should run according to the service date not the invoice date?

I have seen that another person asked that Quickbooks should fix this.

Z

ZackE_

Moderator

Thanks for following up with the Community, YDK.

As my colleague, KlentB, explained, the date that's shown on an accrual-based profit and loss report is the day when your invoices were created. Additionally, their response provides information about how to ensure reports reflect proper details.

If you'd like to submit a product suggestion about our reporting feature in Quickbooks Online, you can do so while signed in.

Here's how:
1. Use your Gear (⚙️) icon.
2. Click Feedback.

3. Enter your suggestions and/or comments.
4. Hit Next.
5. Choose Skip and send message.
6. The available drop-down menu can be used to pick an appropriate category.
7. Select Send message.

Your feedback is definitely valuable to Intuit. It goes directly to the Product Development Team and will be considered in future updates. Feature requests can be tracked through our Customer Feedback website.

If there's anything else I can help with, please feel more than welcome to reach out anytime. Have a fantastic day!

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