I have made payments on quickbooks online but the transactions are categorized by payee rather than listed as individual transactions

Having control over your financial records is essential in maintaining a successful business, Chelele. I'm here to provide details about categorizing bank transactions in QuickBooks Online (QBO) and have accurate records.

Beforehand, when you say categorized by payee? Is this on your Transactions tab? Or you're referring to something else? Knowing this would allow me to provide the appropriate response.

If this is what you're referring to and your payments appeared in the For review tab grouped by payee rather than listed as individual transactions. Please note that QBO depends on how your financial institution clears the transactions to determine appropriate categories.

If the transaction already exists, you may match them and put them in the correct accounts to avoid duplicates. I'll show you how:

1. Go to Transactions and select the Bank transactions tab.
2. Find the downloaded payments.
3. Look for matches in the Category or Match column.
4. Select the downloaded record to expand the view. Please note the date, Description (or Bank detail), and amount spent or received.
5. Review the Suggested matches for any possible matching transactions.
6. Hit Match once if it's the correct transaction.

However, if can't match, use the Find other matches option to look for other transactions. Please note that some of those transactions can't find matches from existing records because:

• Amounts or dates don’t match.
• The transaction is older than six months.
• The bank account used for the payment does not match the bank where the corresponding record is held.
• The payment has been reconciled.
• The record is already matched to another transaction. 
• Multiple currencies are involved, and the exchange rate has shifted significantly, making the amounts very different.

I'll add this article detailing the instructions and related ideas on matching downloaded bank transactions with one you already entered in QuickBooks: Matching online bank transactions in QBO.

To help you if you need to move wrongly matched transactions into the correct accounts and review them so they match your bank and credit card statements, please refer to these articles: 

• Unmatching/moving downloaded bank transactions in QBO
• Reconciling an account in QBO

Please don't hesitate to reply if you have questions about categorizing and matching your bank or credit card transactions or other concerns in QBO. I'll be happy to answer them for you.