Invoicing with QuickBooks Online

Please use the following guide to invoice with QuickBooks Online correctly. 

Create Customers

You can enter your customers in a couple of different ways.

Adding a customer for the first time

When you first go to Customers, you can add your customers by just entering their name, phone number and email.

1. From the left menu, select Sales.
2. Select the Customers tab.

You can go back to the customer record later to enter more details about this customer.

Add subsequent customers

To add more customers,

1. Go to Sales > Customers.
2. Click New Customer.
3. Fill in the fields in the Customer Information window. Enter additional information on the Other details, Tax info, and Payment and billing tabs, if necessary.
4. Click Save. The customer name appears in the list.

Create Invoices

Learn how to create and send invoices in QuickBooks Online.

If you plan to get paid in the future for products and services you sell, send your customers an invoice. Simply add what you sell to an invoice and email it to them.

Customers can pay their invoices online through QuickBooks payments or ACH transfer, or you can use an external payment processing platform.

1. Select + New.
2. Then select Invoice or Send Invoice.
3. From the Customer ▼ dropdown, select a customer. Make sure all of their info is correct, especially their email address.
4. Review the Invoice date. If you need to, change the due date in the Terms ▼ dropdown. Tip: Net refers to the number of days until the payment is due. The default is 30 days, but you can change the due date if needed.
5. From the Product/Service column, select a product or service. You can also select +Add new to create a new product or service right from the invoice.
6. Enter a quantity, rate and change amount if needed. Note: If you see the Flat rate, By hour, or By item options, this means you're in Business view. Your experience is slightly different.
7. Select the Tax checkbox if you need to charge sales tax.
8. When you're ready to send the invoice, select Save and send. Or, if you're using QuickBooks Simple Start, select Send.

If you want to send the invoice later, select Save and close or Record if you’re using QuickBooks Simple Start.

Receive Payments

Once you have received the money from a customer for one or more outstanding invoices, apply the money to the open invoice(s). This closes the invoice(s) in QuickBooks Online.

If you don’t enter a Receive Payment transaction against an invoice but record a Deposit or Sales Receipt transaction instead, accounts receivable is overstated on the balance sheet. Revenue is too high on your income statement. You may pay more in income taxes!

Once you populate the Customer field on a Receive Payment transaction, a list of all open invoices appears on the Receive Payment screen. To complete the Receive Payment transaction:

1. Enter the amount of payment received into the Amount Received field.
2. Make sure the correct date is pre-filled in the Payment Date field.
3. In the Deposit to field, select Undeposited Funds if this payment, along with other payments received, is deposited to the bank in a batch. Select the appropriate bank account if this payment is the only payment going to the bank and this singular amount will appear as your deposit on your bank statement. (This is a “sticky” field. Be sure to check it each time if changing where the money is deposited.)
4. Click on the invoice(s) the payment is paying.
5. Click Save and new or Save and close.

Deposits

When you send sales receipts and/or receive payment transactions to Undeposited Funds, they sit in this account until you create a deposit transaction. To create a deposit transaction, from +New select Bank deposit.

When creating a deposit, be certain you select the correct bank account at the top of the Bank Deposit transaction screen. Then complete the deposit transaction:

1. Populate the Date field with the date you make the deposit.
2. Checkmark the Payments being included in the deposit from the list provided.
3. Add any other deposit items on the Add New Deposits lines below the list of payments. Be careful when entering deposit items on the Add New Deposits line. Do not enter sales transactions here. You will diminish the quality of the reports that use Products/Services. In addition, transactions entered here won’t reflect in the Sales Tax Center.
4. Confirm the total amount of the deposit equals the amount you took/plan to take to the bank, then Save the deposit.