I'm dedicated to helping you overcome this roadblock and ensuring accurate tracking of your invoice payment, evan.
QuickBooks Online (QBO) has an automated feature that applies credits to the next invoice created. It can be the cause of why your newly created invoices are showing as paid.
To control when these credits are applied, we can turn off this feature. Here's how:
Go to the Gear icon.
Select Account and Settings.
Click the Advanced tab.
Look for the Automation section, then press Automatically apply credits.
Toggle it to turn off the feature.
Hit Save, then Done.
Once done, let's manually remove the payment applied to the invoice. To do so, follow these steps:
Highlight the Sales tab.
Select Invoices.
Search for the invoice in question, then click to open.
Press the link under the PAID status. It usually reads 1 payment made ($amount).
A popup window appears, then click the link under Date.
On the Receive Payment page, scroll down and hit the Clear Payment button.
Save and close when finished.
Additionally, let me share these links that you may find relevant in personalizing and handling your sales forms: