clearing ar balances from prior years

Hello there, @StephB250.

Let me outline some details regarding deleting an invoice from the previous year in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

Clearing Account Receivable (A/R) transactions will affect your financial records. These include your Balance Sheet reports and other Income accounts.

Concerning the adjustment matters. QuickBooks will adjust the revenue of the affected period based on the invoice date. Also, it will adjust the balances in the current period. Thus, deleting the transactions is not advisable. Before you proceed, I would highly suggest consulting with your accountant. This way, we can ensure that you enter the transactions accurately and avoid data messing up with your accounts.

However, if there’s no way you can collect the unpaid invoices, you can consider writing off a bad debt. This is used when invoices you send in QuickBooks become uncollectible:

Step 1: Check your aging accounts receivable:

1. Go to the Reports menu.
2. Find and open an Accounts Receivable Ageing Detail report.
3. Check which outstanding accounts receivable should be written off.

Step 2: Create a bad debts expense account:

1. Go to Settings ⚙ and select Chart of Accounts.
2. Tap the New button to create a new account.
3. From the Account Type ▼ dropdown menu, select Expenses.
4. Select Bad Debts from the Detail Type ▼ dropdown.
5. In the Name field, enter “Bad debts.”
6. Select Save and Close.

To complete the process, you can go through this article for the other steps: Write off bad debt in QuickBooks Online.

Keep me posted if you have more questions about handling your invoices. I’ve always got your back. Have a good one!