Do I need payments to generate invoices?

You don't need QuickBooks Payments to generate invoices. Invoicing is an independent QuickBooks Online feature that lets you create, send, and track invoices without a Payments account.

What Payments adds is the ability for your clients to pay those invoices online via credit card or ACH directly from the invoice. Without it, you would need to collect payments through checks, cash, or bank transfers outside of QBO and manually record them within QuickBooks Online.

For more detailed information on how payments work, you can check out this article: Receive and process QuickBooks Payments.

On the other hand, could you please share the exact issue you're running into with your payments? We'd be happy to help you resolve it.

You're always welcome to visit the Community forum for any additional concerns.