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Home/QuickBooks/What Is Accounts Receivable in QuickBooks?
QuickBooks

What Is Accounts Receivable in QuickBooks, and Why Keep an Eye on It

Accounts receivable (A/R) is money customers owe you for things you've already invoiced but haven't been paid for yet. QuickBooks tracks it automatically: every invoice you create adds to it, every payment you receive against that invoice reduces it. You don't set it up by hand; you just need to know where to look and what it's telling you.

Where to actually see it

1. Check the total. Your Accounts Receivable (A/R) balance lives on the Chart of Accounts under Bookkeeping, and shows up as a line on your Balance Sheet. That number is every unpaid, invoiced dollar across every customer, added together.

2. Run the A/R Aging report for the breakdown. Under Reports, search for Accounts Receivable Aging Summary. It splits what customers owe into current, 1-30 days overdue, 31-60, 61-90, and 90-plus, by customer.

3. Switch to the Detail version when you need specifics. Accounts Receivable Aging Detail lists the actual invoices behind each bucket, not just the totals, so you know exactly which invoice to chase.

4. Check a single customer's balance directly. Open Sales, then Customers, and each row shows that customer's current open balance without running a report at all.

Why it's worth more than a once-a-month glance

A/R is the gap between work you've already done and cash you've actually collected. The bigger and older that gap gets, the more your actual cash position diverges from what your profit and loss statement makes it look like, especially if you're used to checking P&L first and A/R second.

The usual failure mode isn't ignorance of the concept, it's timing. Someone checks the aging report at month-end, finds three invoices sitting at 60-plus days, and only then starts the awkward follow-up call. By then it's a collections conversation instead of a quick nudge that would've worked two weeks earlier.

What we've built on top of QuickBooks accounts receivable

01

Aging-triggered follow-up

An invoice crossing 30 days overdue automatically triggers a reminder to the customer and a notification to whoever owns that account, instead of waiting for someone to notice it on a report.

02

A/R rolled into one cash picture

Open A/R combined with your bank balance and upcoming bills into a single real cash-position view, so you're not reading three separate reports to answer how much cash you actually have coming.

03

How often does an invoice get old before anyone notices?

Tell us how late is too late for your business, and we'll tell you if the follow-up can happen without someone checking a report first.

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Only find out an invoice is overdue when the aging report gets checked?

Tell us how you'd want to find out instead, and how late is actually a problem for your cash flow. We'll tell you if it can run on its own. And this isn't limited to receivables; whatever else runs on someone remembering to check a report is fair game too.

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Questions people ask

Why is my accounts receivable negative in QuickBooks?

Usually a customer was overpaid, or a credit memo or payment got applied to the wrong invoice, pushing that customer's balance below zero. Run the Aging Detail report, find the customer with the negative line, and trace the specific payment or credit that caused it.

Do I need to set up accounts receivable in QuickBooks myself?

No. The A/R account is created automatically as soon as your company file exists; you never manually add money to it. It only moves because you created an invoice (adds to it) or recorded a payment against one (reduces it).

How do I write off an uncollectible accounts receivable balance?

Create a Bad Debt expense account if you don't already have one, then apply a credit memo for the invoice amount against that account. This removes it from your open A/R while keeping a record that the amount existed and was written off, rather than just deleting the invoice.

What type of account is accounts receivable in QuickBooks?

It's an asset account, specifically the Accounts Receivable type. It represents money you're owed, which is why it shows up on the asset side of your Balance Sheet, not as income (income is recognized when you invoice, not when A/R clears).

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