How to Handle Unapplied Cash Payments in Quickbooks
When running a profit and loss report in Quickbooks, do you see an unapplied cash payment? According to Intuit, this can occur if a customer prepays and you record his or per payment before creating the appropriate invoice or sales receipt. Alternatively, unapplied cash payments can occur if you enter payments without connecting them to the appropriate invoices or sales forms. Regardless, you should resolve unapplied cash payments so that they don’t affect adversely affect your profit and loss reports.
Run an Open Invoices Report
To get started, log in to Quickbooks and choose “Reports” from the main menu. Next, enter “Open Invoices” in the report search field, after which you can choose a date range. When finished, click “Run report.” Finally, scroll through the transactions listed under the “Transaction Type” column while searching for “Payment.” This is the unapplied payment that you’ll need to resolve in your Quickbooks account.
Does the Payment Match an Open Invoice?
If the payment you recently discovered in the “Transaction Type” column matches an open invoice, you should choose the payment date to open it. Next, check the open invoice in the “Outstanding Transactions,” after which you can click “Save and Close” to complete the process.
If the payment you recently discovered in the “Transaction Type” column doesn’t match an open invoice, you must create a new transaction for it. This is done by going back to the main Quickbooks home screen and clicking the (+) icon, followed by Customers > Invoice. You must then complete the required fields pertaining to the invoice. Of course, you should use enter the same information in these fields as found in the payment. When finished, click “Save and Close.”
You aren’t finished just yet. After saving and closing the new invoice, run a new “Open Invoices” report so that you can find the unapplied payment. Once opened, check the newly created invoice in the “Outstanding Transactions” section. Upon completing these steps, you can click “Save and Close” yet again to complete the process.
Assuming you followed these steps correctly, you should no longer have an unapallied cash payment in your Quickbooks account. To verify everything worked as planned, go back and run another profit and loss report. When checking this report, you shouldn’t see the unapplied cash payment listed anymore, indicating you successfully matched it to an invoice or sales receipt.
Did this tutorial work for you? Let us know in the comments section below!