As with any software, certain procedures must be followed in QuickBooks Online (QBO). If they aren’t, you get unpredictable results.
An ‘unpredictable result’ that QBO users sometimes face is duplicated transactions. This usually happens when using the bank feeds feature, but not using the right methods to accept bank transactions.
When bank transactions are pulled in from your bank, QBO looks for matching transactions that have already been entered manually. Note the red circles in the above screenshot.
Where a match is found, QBO displays Match in the Action column. If no match is found, QBO offers to Add the transactions for you.
Sometimes a QBO user will click the Add button without giving QBO the necessary information for posting the transaction correctly. Note the arrow in the graphic. Since QBO doesn’t know where this transaction came from, it will post to Uncategorized Income.
Uncategorized Income is definitely not the account we want to use. To further complicate matters, a bank reconciliation may be done clearing the transaction as it is.
Changing an account is not a problem when editing a deposit, even if it has been reconciled. But what if there were customer payments that had been received? They now sit in the list of payments waiting to be deposited, and will continue to sit there until we deposit them. But the deposit has already been entered and reconciled posting to Uncategorized Income.
Here is the solution. Find the deposit added in error in the register. Select it and click on edit.
The deposit window opens with a list of the then current payments waiting to be added to a deposit transaction. Select the payments that should have been used in this deposit to begin with.
Scroll to the bottom of the deposit window and delete the line posting to Uncategorized Income.
Once the correct payments have been selected and the line to Uncategorized Income deleted, the deposit amount matches what was added from bank feeds. You can save your corrected deposit.
Above is a screenshot of a similar problem. A check has been duplicated and cleared through the bank reconciliation process. The circled “R” symbol indicates that it has been cleared.
However, the symbol on the second check indicates it has been imported from the bank feeds process, which tentatively clears the transaction. Tentatively just means a temporary clear until a bank reconciliation is done, marking it as permanently reconciled.
You can edit these symbols in the transaction. You could change the imported transaction to the “R” status and then delete the duplicate.
Don’t do this unless you are sure you are right about what you are doing.
Changing reconciled status in the register can cause serious errors if not done carefully and correctly, so use caution.
In this case, following the procedure outlined, our bank reconciliation will remain correct. And, the deleted duplicate won’t cause an imported bank transaction to reappear in the bank feeds list because it is no longer matched.
Hector Garcia, CPA
Certified Advanced QuickBooks ProAdvisor
7791 NW 46th St. Suite 109
Doral, FL 33166
954-414-1524
hector@garciacpa.com
