Reporting in QuickBooks has been quirky since I started using the product almost 30 years ago. Please send a "feedback" report to QBO urging them to 'fix' the issue without delay. Your feedback link to QBO engineers can be found on the Gear Icon > Profile.
An error in these naming conventions will produce inaccurate financial statements and could constitute financial fraud. Advice Regarding Naming Conventions in QuickBooks
Issues with Customer and Vendor Transactions:
Payee field on Bills, Expenses, Checks, Vendor Credits and Purchase orders is a Vendor
Customer field on Invoices, Receive Payments, Estimate, Credit Memos, Sales Receipts, Refund Receipts, Delayed Credit and Delayed Charge is a customer
The problems arise in reporting when using Deposits, Journal Entries and Adjustments:
Name field on a Journal Entry is either, Customer or Vendor but not both. Hence, these transactions remain "unspecified" on reports and in the Customer or Vendor Module without manipulating naming conventions.
Received From field on a Deposit is either, Customer or Vendor but not both. Hence these transactions remain "unspecified" on reports and in the Customer or Vendor Module without manipulating naming conventions.
Sales Tax Adjustments and Inventory Quantity Adjustments do not have a field for a customer. Hence, these transactions remain "unspecified" on all reports, and in the Customer or Vendor Modules.
How to effectively enter affected transactions:
For Deposits, if you've deposited funds from a Vendor return and you don't plan on having a bill to apply a vendor credit to in the future (currently these cannot be applied to deposits), you can convert the Vendor to Vendor (c), making the vendor a customer and the deposit transaction will show up on the customer report/list, but not the vendor report list.
For Journal Entries, you will need to do the same. Either use Vendor (c) or Customer (v) depending on which Chart of Account(s) category and whether the transaction is a debit or credit.
If you have sales taxes adjustments, these transactions are always "unspecified" on all reports, as there is no field on the transaction for class, customer or location. Hence, they only appear in your sales tax liability register.
If you are creating an Inventory Quantity Adjustment for a customer specific item or bundle the COGS value will be "unspecified" for the customer as there is no customer field on an Inventory Quantity Adjustment transaction and it will not appear in the Customer module or reports. (This needs to be fixed! Gear Icon > QBO engineers feedback) This document should have a customer field and billable selection feature to account for loss of inventory being adjusted.)
How to Manage the issue in QuickBooks:
If you are running any report by customer, class or location always filter to "UNSPECIFIED" first to see what could be missing from your balance.
If you are looking for a specific vendor transaction and it is not found in your vendor module, always check the customer list. (v) naming convention.
If you are looking for a specific customer transaction and it is not found in your customer list, always check the vendor list. (c) naming convention.
If you have Vendors that are also Customers and transactions vary, be very careful to correctly apply naming conventions. Use Vendor (c) and Customer (v)
DO NOT USE Transfer transactions as they do not contain class, location, or customer and the transactions have no split field.
DO NOT USE Pay down credit card transactions as they do not contain class, location or customer information and the transactions have no split field.
For rules and recurring transactions be sure the class, customer and location are correct.
In conclusion
While this issue can cause your vendor and customer lists to become a bit disordered, transactions difficult to find, and reports maybe a bit skewed, following the advice here is a good 'work around'. When time arrives to 1099 your vendors be sure to verify that the naming conventions have been debited and credited appropriately to the particular individual.
Again, I urge you to Please send a "feedback" report to QBO urging them to 'fix' the issue without delay. Your feedback link to QBO engineers can be found on the Gear Icon > Feedback.
If you should have any question, or if you've encountered any other related issues you'd like to add to this list, feel free to contact me. or leave a comment on this post.
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