Open Customer Invoices Report

This article addresses the benefits of reviewing an Open (customer) Invoices report in comparison to a typical Accounts Receivables report.

Most of the times small business owners are familiar with the term Accounts Receivables and thus will process the corresponding named report in a bookkeeping software to ascertain which customers still owe them money.

However, to be a little more creative, you can also process a similar report in QuickBooks entitled “Open Invoices” to review your receivables from a different perspective. A different perspective can be especially helpful if you have a lot of receivables from months and years past still open in your books.

So, let’s compare three reports (from QuickBooks Online):

1. Accounts Receivables Summary
2. Accounts Receivables Detail
3. Open Invoices

This first report is an Accounts Receivables Summary report. Notice there is a column breakdown by period of time. This report may be helpful to quickly ascertain which customers are the furthest behind in their payments to you:

The next report below is an Accounts Receivables Detail report. Notice this report is again sorted by period of time, but from rows instead of columns:

Now, the last report below, is an example of an Open Invoices report (utilizing the same data as the above two reports).

Notice this report is very clear as to who owes you money. The reason is this report is sorted only by customer name. This report can be very helpful for multiple reasons:

1. It will breakdown if a customer owes you for more than one invoice and also will separate out all of the credits on file for this customer as well.
2. If you have a lengthy list of customers, you can use this report to quickly ascertain the status of a particular customer you are inquiring of at that time.
3. You can use this report to help apply specific credits to specific invoices; that way it can help close out all known open issues with this customer.
4. You can also customize this report to show BOTH the original amount invoiced and the remaining open balance of that particular invoice.

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.