Why can't I use an equity account as payment account for receipt?

Thank you for reaching out to Community, Scarlet.

I'm glad to share insights about recording expenses paid with personal funds. The Payment Method dropdown list will only show bank and other current asset accounts. Since the Owner's Investment is an equity account, this is why it won't show up on the list.

To record items paid with personal funds, you can create a Journal Entry. With this, you can directly affect the expense account used for purchase and the Owner's Investment account.

Here are the steps:

1. Select + New and choose Journal Entry.
2. On the first line, select the expense account for the purchase.
3. Enter the purchase amount in the Debits column.
4. On the second line, select the Owner's Investment equity account.
5. Enter the same purchase amount in the Credits column.
6. Click Save and close.

Once everything is set, you can record the reimbursement by creating either an expense or a check. To record it as an expense, follow these steps:

1. Click + New and select Expense.
2. Choose a bank account to use to reimburse the personal funds.
3. In the Category column, choose the Owner's Investment equity account.
4. Enter the amount of the reimbursement.
5. Click Save and close.
   

For additional reference in reimbursing personal expense, see this resource: Pay for Business Expenses with Personal Funds.

Furthermore, if you want to see all payments you made to your vendors, check this link for more information: Run a report with the vendors' total.

If you have more questions about recording expenses, feel free to Reply to this thread. I'm always here to assist you.

Okay, so my bloody comment just got deleted because the Qualtrics survey popped up randomly while I was typing. There are so many bugs on this community UI. I even had to type the numbered list manually below as the WYSIWYG controls for the numbered list above don't seem to work correctly. I guess at least that is consistent between the Intuit products I have experienced.

Let me try to explain why you manual entry of journal entries in the owner's equity is a bad solution.

The tools for handling receipts are pretty powerful and convenient in quickbooks. Your solution has me bypassing all the convenience to manually enter everything. That's kinda unfortunate at the very least.

Here's the solution I like better:

1. Upload a receipt for process

2. After processing, click the review for the receipt

3. Make a "bill" instead of an expense

4. Add a line item to zero out the bill with a negative entry posted to appropriate member equity account

5. Save the bill

This has the advantage of letting the QB receipt workflow process the receipt and import the relevant data, like the total and the vendor.

The downside is that I have an zero'd out transaction for each receipt in my A/P account now. This makes absolutely zero sense when the equity account should probably just be allowed alongside the Bank accounts for the payment account for an expense. Or maybe there should be a workflow for paying with owner's non-business funds.

I really do not understand why equity accounts shouldn't be able to be used this way.

BTW, I should say also that I do exactly what you say to reimburse the owner for this expense. I am mainly describing the process of taking a receipt and getting an entry in the equity account.

I want to be able to use the quickbooks tools instead of having to manually enter everything.

We truly value and appreciate any feedback you might have regarding our products, Scarlet. To ensure your voice is heard, here are the steps you can follow to share your thoughts with us.

Our Product Development team will receive your feedback directly to enhance your overall experience with the QBO. The dedicated platform enables our developers to prioritize requested features and improvements based on customer input.

Here are the steps:

1. Go to the Gear or Settings icon and select Feedback.
2. Enter your comments or product suggestions.
3. Click Next to submit feedback.

You can track all suggestions submitted through this channel: QuickBooks Online Feature Requests.

Also, I'll be sharing these links that will guide you in running reports and tracking your cash flow to know the amount of money moving in and out of your business:

• Print a journal entry report in QuickBooks Online
• Use reports to track cash flow in QuickBooks Online

Feel free to leave a comment below if you have any recommendations or if there’s something else I can help you with regarding QuickBooks. I'm here to provide assistance. Take care.

@ScarletCleopatra 

There's no need to use a journal entry as suggested by @NicoleAscencionS.  If you don't want to use a $0.00 Bill or Expense transaction, create a bank account in QB called 'Clearing Account' and use that as the bank account from which to pay the Bill or Expense.  Then, move the balance from the Clearing Account to your Member Equity account using a Transfer (New > Transfer).  The Clearing Account should always be $0.00 after the Transfer.    

When I click the feedback from the gear menu, literally nothing happens on the screen. I have used it before. I know it used to work. Again, the web UI appears to be broken.

I am using Chrome. If I use an incognito window instead, the feedback textbox shows up? I guess I will delete my cookies and see if that changes anything.

I’m here to help you resolve this, Scarlet.

Let's try some troubleshooting steps to ensure you're able to submit your feedback successfully. 

First, let's access your account using a private or incognito browser. This will help us isolate any unexpected behavior related to your browser. You can use the following keyboard shortcuts to open a private window: 

•  For Google Chrome: Ctrl + Shift + N
•  For Mozilla Firefox: Ctrl + Shift + P
•  For Safari: Command + Shift + N 

Once you’re logged in, try submitting your feedback again by following these steps:

1.  Click on the Gear icon. 
2.  Select Feedback.
3.  Type your suggestion in the description box. 
4.  Click Next. 

If you are able to successfully submit a feedback, you'd want to clear your browser's cache so the system will start refresh. Also you can use other supported browsers.

Please let me know if you need further assistance with sending a feedback, I am always here to extend a helping hand. Have a good day! 

Deleting my cookies did not fix it. So, I also tried deleting any app data I could find in my Developer Console. Still nothing. What is going on Intuit?

Okay, so it was the Privacy Badger extension interacting poorly with your site. Are you doing some kind of cookie funny business?

Also, why does your site have soooooooo many javascript errors when I look in my dev console? Seems pretty excessive.

We appreciate you performing the troubleshooting steps above to address your concern, Scarlet. We always prioritize ensuring you have a seamless experience when navigating the software. I'm here to add information on how the program works.

QuickBooks Online is a cloud-based version that's accessible via a browser. As you navigate the software, an excessive amount of cache files builds up that can become corrupted over time. These outdated data can cause unexpected behaviors, including errors or other issues when maximizing its features. Utilizing a private window and clearing your cache can avoid interruptions from these corrupted data, allowing you to complete different tasks accordingly.

Additionally, I recommend including your experience when sending feedback to our product engineers. They might consider them when working with future product updates. You can track them through this link: QuickBooks Online Feature Requests.

On the other hand, you can proceed to the Managing expenses section in this material for guidance on updating and reviewing your expenses: Enter and manage expenses in QuickBooks Online.

Add a reply on this thread to let us know if you have other queries when navigating QuickBooks Online. We're always determined to assist you with any concerns you have.

Reviewing expenses is great except that I cannot use an equity account as a payment account. This means that I can't move money to the equity account without the chicanery I described above. I submitted a couple feedback messages related to this issue. And I see two possible fixes:

1. Let the equity account be used as a payment account in an expense. This seems like the most natural solution to me.

2. Allow a receipt to be used to create a journal entry on an equity account. This seems like an unneeded extra workflow for something that looks a lot like an expense to me. In addition, it's a little hard to store things like a transaction id (like an Amazon order number) when I'm working with a journal entry instead of an expense.