Understand where to find incoming revenue in your QuickBooks file with this helpful tutorial on outstanding invoices, unbilled time and expenses, the Undeposited Funds account, and the QuickBooks Income Tracker.
While your bank account balances can tell you how much cash in hand you have today, it doesn’t paint a thorough picture of the financial state of your business, and it certainly doesn’t tell you anything about expected revenue in the coming days, weeks, and months. If your business sends estimates and invoices to customers, your income could be spread across several places in QuickBooks. It may be parked temporarily in:
Unresolved estimates
Unbilled time and expenses
Open invoices
Overdue invoices
Your Undeposited Funds account
In this article, we’ll get familiar with accessing and understanding your revenue data in each location.
Finding Outstanding Invoices
Let’s start with unpaid invoices. Navigate to the QuickBooks Customer Center (Customers | Customer Center) and click the Transactions tab in the upper left. The pane below will display a list of transactions, including Invoices, Estimates, and Sales Receipts. Click Invoices, and the window to the right will show you all of your invoices from a specific date range (which you can modify as needed).
In the field to the right of Filter By, click the down arrow to view All Invoices, Open Invoices, and Overdue invoices. Double-click on any entry in these lists to see the original transaction.
You can visit QuickBooks’ Customer Center to view lists of transaction types.
Finding Unbilled Time and Expenses
Next, let’s discuss how you can find time and expenses you’ve already incurred but have yet to bill the client for. Navigate to Customers | Invoice for Time & Expenses. Change the Date Range as needed. If you’re ready to collect payment for some or all of the listed time and expenses, click into the field in front of every individual entry you want to bill for or Select All. When selecting just one entry to bill, a button in the lower right corner will read Create Invoice, and a pre-filled invoice will open for you to process. However, if you select multiple entries, that “Create Invoice” button would change to read Next Step, opening a window containing your billables. If you see unexpected Unbilled Time or Expense entries here, you may remove them through the “Hide” column.
Highlight one billable and click Edit Options in the lower left corner. In the dialog box that opens, you can indicate how you want line items to be displayed and whether you’re charging a Markup Amount. You can also Review Billables. Click Create Invoices in the lower right corner when you’re ready. If you’re uncertain about how to handle any of these options, reach out to us for help.
Please let us know if you’re unsure how to handle the options in this dialog box.
Understanding and Locating Your Undeposited Funds Account
Your Undeposited Funds account in QuickBooks is another location where revenue could be sitting. It contains revenue that's been paid by your customers but has yet to be deposited into your bank account. From your Undeposited Funds account, you can create deposit tickets. We have a great tutorial on how to do so here. Undeposited Funds is the default destination for payments received, and while you can change that destination to something else, we do not recommend doing so without our help. Routing funds to a different destination in QuickBooks could lead to accounting problems in the future. To access your Undeposited Funds account, click the Chart of Accounts icon on your QuickBooks home page or go to Lists | Chart of Accounts. Scroll down to and right-click Undeposited Funds, then click QuickReport: Undeposited Funds. Let us know if you need help understanding this account and how to manage it.
Leveraging the QuickBooks Income Tracker
We’ve just discussed how you can individually access outstanding and overdue invoices, billable time and expenses, and your Undeposited Funds account. Now, let’s discuss how you can access information about your uncollected revenue in one place: the QuickBooks Income Tracker. In your toolbar, there should be a link to Income Tracker. You can click that link or navigate to Customers | Income Tracker. You’ll see a horizontal toolbar at the top of the page with labels for multiple types of sales transactions: Estimates, Time & Expenses, Open Invoices, Overdue (Invoices), and Paid Last 30 Days. You can see a partial image of the toolbar below.
A partial view of the Income Tracker toolbar.
Each label includes the quantity of each type of transaction, along with a total dollar amount. Click the Estimates tab, for example, and the list changes to isolate only the transactions that are estimates. You can filter these by Customer, Type, Status, and Date.
From this view, you can act on an outstanding transaction. Scroll across a row to its end and click the down arrow in the field under Action. A menu displaying your options for this transaction will open. Note that these options will differ from one transaction type to the next. For example, if you have filtered your view to estimates only, your choices will read: Convert to Invoice, Mark as Inactive, Print Row, and Email Row. If you have invoices open, you can also Receive Payment.
Want to execute the same action on multiple transactions? Click the box before each transaction to create a checkmark, and select the desired option at the end of the row. You can also double-click on any entry to open the underlying transaction.
Improving Cashflow in Your Business
We recommend opening the Income Tracker frequently. It will help you stay up-to-date on the status and location of your revenue, which will, in turn, improve your cash flow. It will also alert you to follow up on overdue invoices and unbilled work. Have questions on this QuickBooks Desktop tool or any of the software’s other operations? Just let us know.