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Does your business offer loans to customers? While some businesses require their customers to pay for products and services upfront — or pay after the delivery of a product or the completion of a service — others offer loans as an alternative. With a loan, you can close out all of a customer’s open and unpaid invoices, followed by recording a loan for the customer. The customer will still have to repay the loan, but he or she won’t have any open invoices. How do you record a customer loan in Quickbooks exactly?

Step #1) Access the Chart of Accounts

To get started, you’ll need to access the chart of accounts in Quickbooks. The chart of accounts, of course, is a ledger containing all of the accounts with which your business has conducted transactions. In Quickbooks Online, you can access it by clicking the gear icon on the homepage and selecting “Chart of Accounts.”

Step #2) Specify Non-Current or Other Current Assets

After pulling up the chart of accounts, you’ll need to specify whether the loan is for non-current or other current assets. Non-current assets are intended for loans that must be repaid after the end of the current fiscal year. Other current assets, on the other hand, are intended for loans that must be repaid by the end of the current fiscal year. You can choose between non-current or other current assets by clicking “New” in the chart of account, followed by “Current Assets.”

Step #3) Choose the Detail Type

There are still a few things extra you’ll need to do in order to record a customer loan in Quickbooks. You’ll need to choose the detail type, for instance. For the detail type option, select “Loans to others.” There are other options from which you can choose. Since you are trying to record a customer loan, the correct option is to choose is “Loans to others.”

Step #4) Enter a Name and Save

You can enter a name for the customer loan. Quickbooks doesn’t require you to enter any specific name. Rather, you’ll have the freedom to choose any name for the customer loan. Nonetheless, it’s recommended that you enter a descriptive and relevant name for the customer loan so that you can easily remember it. When finished, click the “Save and Close” option to finish the process. The loan will now be added to your Quickbooks account. You can then proceed to create a journal entry for the opening balance of the loan, followed by applying credits to the loan using the customer’s accounts receivable.

Did this tutorial work for you? Let us know in the comments section below!