Transaction by vendor lists: Expenses show up as negative if paid by checking account

Allow me to share some insights on why you're seeing a negative balance in the expense report, billyay.

Bill transactions will show up as an expense if you haven't applied them to a payment yet. Once you've paid the bill, the bill-payment will show a positive amount on both Account Payable (A/P) and the transaction bank accounts when you run vendor reports.

For more details, you can check this article: Enter, edit, or delete expenses in QuickBooks Online. This also provides information on how you can make any changes to the expense you've created.

Please refer to this article on how you can run a report that will reflect all payments made to vendors: Run a report with vendor totals.

Please let me know if you have other concerns. I'm just around to help. Take care!

Thanks for your reply.  They were transactions that were already paid from the checking account so the "Expense" type is correct.  I can't figure out why it is showing up as a negative number.  

Hello there, @billyay.

There are two reasons we can consider why expenses are showing as negative.

First, you'll want to check if there are deposits transactions made on your expenses. This will show a negative amount on your account.

Second, another reason is if bills were deleted while bill payment remains in the system. You can run the Unpaid Bill report to check what are those transactions.

Here's how:

1. Click Reports.

2. On the search bar type, Unpaid Bill.

I have added this link in case you have other questions about income and expenses in QuickBooks Online.

Feel free to let us know if there are things that you want us to help with. We're always right here if you need further assistance.

There is no deposit transactions made on the expenses and there are no unpaid bills. These are just transactions being paid from the checking account directly. These transactions were synced and I literally just linked these draw to the payee and entered the category. I included a snapshot below. thanks

There is no deposit transactions made on the expenses and there are no unpaid bills. These are just transactions being paid from the checking account directly. These transactions were synced and I literally just linked these draw to the payee and entered the category. I included a snapshot below. thanks

Hi there, @billyay.

Thanks for following up with us and including your screenshot to use as a visual reference. 

I wanted to jump in a explain a little further as to why you're seeing a negative amount for the expenses.

In QuickBooks, a standard expense is money taken straight away. A bill payment is paying off the bill to make the bill closed as paid. Whereas, the expense is paid straight away, so it shows differently on the transactions list.

So when you're entering the expense that's not tied to a bill to show as closed and paid, it will show as a negative amount. 

You can see more details about expenses in Enter and manage expenses in QuickBooks Online.

I hope this information helps you out. Please don't hesitate to let me know if you have any questions or concerns. I'm always around to lend a hand. Take care! 

I have to say, I have the same issue. And the main question to start with is: why did Intuit decided that "expense" category/ feature is needed when "pay bill" and "check" are already available and they are all count as expense. So, Intuit wanted to make it more "easier" for the end user, so they created expense that is shown as a negative number which is a credit when it should show as a positive because it is debit. I am sure that every accountant that issue a report for "Expense by Vendor" almost got a heat attack from seeing all the negative transactions. Accountant don't think as the end user, meaning, negative means outgoing expense from the bank.

You just made it more complicated than what it should be!!

So how do you fix this.... I have the same issue but I have A LOT of payments that were made via the checking account/debit account for bills that were not issued. Is there an easy way to correct this?

Hello, Secoffice.

I completely understand how frustrating it can be to see expenses showing up as negative on your account statement, especially when you've paid for them through a checking account.

But before anything else, could you share your process for recording payments made toward bills that have not yet been issued? 

It's important to note that if you use an expense in your financial records, the corresponding amount will be recorded as a negative value in your checking account. This is because an expense represents a withdrawal of funds from your account. Negative values in your checking account indicate that you have spent more than you have deposited, which is an important aspect to keep track of in order to maintain a healthy financial balance.

For future help, please refer to this article on how you can run a report that will reflect all payments made to vendors: Run a report with vendor totals.

Leave a comment anytime if you have concerns with your transactions. I'm always here to lend a helping hand. Have a good day!

I finally understand. It's possible this conversation was regarding the wrong subject for me and perhaps for others looking here, as well.

For those of us who are absolutely confused by this conversation, we have all probably been looking at the wrong vendor report!!!!!!!!

The report most of us want is called Expenses by Vendor Summary (in Reports). That will show all of the expenses for a specific vendor and it doesn't care about what payment method you used to pay them or whether there was a bill or not.