Working with Delayed Charges can sometimes be a challenge in QuickBooks Online, especially if you need to reuse a Delayed Charge that has been “closed.”

I recently had this issue when I used a Delayed Charge (entered previously) on a customer’s invoice and then realized that the invoice was incorrect only after having emailed it to the client.  I notified the customer immediately, and voided out the invoice in my QuickBooks Online company file.  I would need to reuse the Delayed Charge again on the new invoice, but its status had been changed to “closed” when I used it on the now voided invoice.  The status of this Delayed Charge did not revert back to “open” when I voided the invoice that it was used on.

QuickBooks Online would not allow me to reuse the Delayed Charge since it was “closed,” and there is no option to make the status “open” again.  For a moment I was stumped, but the solution was really quite easy.  I simply copied the closed Delayed Charge to recreate the exact same one (with the same date) again!  This copy of the Delayed Charge had an “open” status, and I could use it on the new invoice.

QuickBooks Online does not consider Delayed Charges as part of income, so this “copy” action does not create double revenues from having two identical Delayed Charges. Now I was able to create a new invoice that used the copied Delayed Invoice, and included the two additional Delayed Charges that I omitted on the first invoice.  I emailed the new invoice to the customer.

Quick thinking helped alleviate any confusion for the customer, and allowed me to resolve the issue fast.  The customer understood and promptly paid his invoice.

QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop have many differences.  It is important to understand these differences in order to produce these types of on-the-fly solutions as you need them.

Note: AccuraBooks is a bookkeeping firm only, so please consult with your C.P.A. for verification and clarification about the contents of this article.