7b. How to Enter Revenue in QBO
This section goes over specific instruction for each of the QBO transactions used to enter revenue. First, I will show you how to add the customer to record the transaction under. Then we will look at how to enter Sales Receipts, Pledges, Receive Payment, and Bank Deposits. Use the dropdown menus below to view each section. If you’re unsure which transaction to use, review the previous section for more information.
Navigation: Menu > Sales > Customers
Navigation: New Customer
Enter Customer information
If you are entering transactions by individual donor, enter their first and last name. If the donor is a company or other organization, use the Company Name box. The Customer Display Name box has a drop-down option where you can choose how an individual’s name appears. This is useful if you’ll be using QBO for donor information until you get a CRM.
If you are entering bulk transactions, enter the source of the incoming payments under the Company Name section. For example, if you will be recording donations from PayPal, you can enter PayPal as the company name.
Enter Customer information for Restricted funds
The Customer record is how you will track the ongoing balance of restricted funds. Each restricted fund will have its own Customer record where you will track revenue and expenses. We’ll get more into that process later, but for now just know that each restricted fund is set up as its own Customer.
There are a couple extra steps to add a restricted fund Customer. First, follow the steps above but enter the Customer name as -Restricted. Make sure you put a symbol in front of the name. In this case I used a dash, but you can use anything that will make it show up at the top of the list. This will make your work so much easier in later steps!
Save that Customer. Then follow the instructions to add a Customer again. This time, enter the funder’s name.
Scroll down and choose “Is a sub-customer”
Options will appear. Choose -Restricted as the parent customer.
If that funder will only be providing one restricted grant, then you can stop here. If they will be providing multiple grants that need to be tracked separately, then make a sub-customer under that funder’s name for each grant. You can use a description of the grant for each of the new customers. You will end up with 3 levels of Customers:
- -Restricted
- Funder Name
- Grant A
- Grant B
- Funder Name
Navigation: +New > Sales Receipt
Top section of Sales Receipt
- Required fields:
- Customer: Choose the applicable Customer for this transaction. That could be an individual, the payment processor if doing bulk entries, or the restricted fund.
- Sales Receipt date: Choose the date the transaction took place and funds were received.
- Deposit to: If the funds went directly to the bank account, choose the bank account. If they are a check or cash to be deposited later, choose Undeposited Funds. (If you don’t see Undeposited Funds, it may be called something else, like Payments to Deposit.)
- Optional fields:
- Email: Make sure this is correct if you will be sending a copy of this receipt to the customer. This and the Billing Address section will load automatically when you choose a customer.
- Sales receipt number: This loads automatically, but you can change it if needed.
- Payment method: Choose how the payment was received.
- Reference number: Put the check number here, if the funds were received by check.
Middle section of Sales Receipt
- Required Fields
- Product / Service: Choose the applicable revenue account. (Remember, we prepared these in the Setup section of the guide. If you don’t see your revenue accounts here, go back and set up your Products / Services.)
- Amount
- Class: Choose the applicable class. (Remember, we prepared these in the Setup section of the guide. If you don’t see your programs here, go back and set up your Classes.)
- Optional Fields
- Description: This is optional but it’s helpful to have a general description if you have to search for it later.
You can enter multiple lines with different information in one transaction. This is useful if you are recording bulk income from a credit card processor or CRM. Even smaller individual transactions may need to be split up. If the transaction includes revenue that goes to different accounts or classes, then you will create a new line for each one. This way, you don’t have to create a new transaction for each type of income.
Bottom section of Sales Receipt
Everything in this section is optional.
Message boxes: If you want the description you wrote in the middle section to show up on transaction reports, then add the same description to each of these boxes.
Attachments: You can add any relevant attachments.
Navigation: +New > Pledge
Top section of Pledge
Reminder: Pledges and invoices are the same thing. In this window, it’s called an invoice, even though it’s a Pledge in the menu.
- Required fields
- Customer: Choose the applicable Customer for this transaction.
- Invoice date: Enter the date when the promise of funds was made. For example, the day a grant agreement was signed.
- Optional fields
- Invoice Number: This populates automatically. If you use a different system to create pledges before entering them to QBO, you can change this to match the number you used in the other system.
- Terms: This will populate automatically, but can be changed.
- Due date: This populates based on the terms section, but can be manually updated.
Middle section of Pledge
- Required Fields
- Product / Service: Choose the applicable revenue account. (Remember, we prepared these in the Setup section of the guide. If you don’t see your revenue accounts here, go back and set up your Products / Services.)
- Amount
- Class: Choose the applicable class. (Remember, we prepared these in the Setup section of the guide. If you don’t see your programs here, go back and set up your Classes.)
- Optional Fields
- Description: This is optional but it’s helpful to have a general description if you have to search for it later.
You can enter multiple lines with different information in one transaction. If the transaction includes revenue that goes to different accounts or classes, then you will create a new line for each one. This way, you don’t have to create a new transaction for each type of income.
Bottom section of Pledge
Everything in this section is optional.
Memo: If you want the description you wrote in the middle section to show up on transaction reports, then add the same description to the Memo.
Attachments: You can add any relevant attachments.
Navigation: +New > Receive Payment
Top section of Receive Payment
Choose the Customer who made made payment.
Middle section of Receive Payment
The available pledges will appear when the customer is chosen.
- Date: Choose the date that the payment was received.
- Payment Method: Choose the payment method. If it was a check, enter the check number as the reference number. (This section isn’t strictly necessary, but can be very helpful if you need to find a specific transaction later.)
- Deposit to: If this payment went straight to the bank, choose the bank account. If it will be deposited later, choose Undeposited Funds.
Check the box of the Pledge or Pledges that this payment applies to. When you check the box, the total amount will automatically populate in the Payment section. You can change the amount if it is a partial payment.
Bottom section of Receive Payment
The bottom section is optional for notes and attachments.
Navigation: +New > Bank Deposit
Top section of bank Deposit
- Account: Choose the account the funds were deposited to.
- Date: Choose the date the funds were deposited.
- Use the Check Box to choose which payments were included in this particular deposit.
Bottom section of Bank Deposit
This section has an area where you can add more deposits. Be careful doing that though, because adding things in this section won’t always track information how you might expect. There’s also a risk of duplicating information. Don’t use the “Add funds to this deposit” section for anything related to an open Pledge, or anything that was already recorded with a Sales Receipt because doing so will duplicate that information and over-state revenue. There is a “Received from” section to put a customer name, but this won’t show up in the customer record unless you follow an extra step of choosing “Include deposits” when you’re viewing their record. Best practice is to leave this section alone for now.
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