Why are my income and expense transactions missing from my Profit and Loss report?

If you find that your income and expense transactions are missing from your profit and loss report, there are a few things you can do to troubleshoot this issue.

Check your accounting basis #

The first item that should be checked is how the accounting basis is set for the Profit and Loss report.

Note: The difference between cash basis and accrual basis reporting is how the date is determined for reporting the income or expense.

How to run a Profit and Loss report: #

  1. From the left menu, select Reports, then Profit and Loss.
  2. Select Customize.
  3. On the Customize report window, set Accounting Method to how you want the income/expense reported.
  4. Select Run report.

Things to know when you run a report: #

  • With invoices and received payments, the revenue information is contained in the invoice.
  • With bills and bills payment, the expense is tracked by the bill.

  • The cash basis reports will use the invoice/bill date.

Understand what is reported on the Profit and Loss report #

Something to think about when troubleshooting missing transactions is knowing what exactly will show on the Profit and Loss report.

Often the expectation is that the Profit and Loss report will reflect payments, but that isn’t usually the case when the income or expense is recognized.

When troubleshooting missing transactions consider the following: #

  • When you receive payment from a customer, that only affects Accounts Receivable and your bank account.
  • If you pay a bill, that only affects Accounts Payable and your bank account. These are all balance sheet accounts, which don’t reflect on your Profit and Loss report.
  • In order to recognize revenue for received payments, you need an invoice created for that customer. This goes for your vendors too. To recognize the expense from bill payments there must be a bill.
  • If you don’t use our invoice/receive payments entry system, but instead record deposits, those should show as long as the deposit is affecting an income account.
  • If you just record the checks written or cash disbursements made, those will show as long as an expense account is listed on the transaction. (Note: If only balance sheet accounts are listed on these transactions, they will not show.)

That’s it. You now know how to find missing income and expense transactions on your Profit and Loss report.

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