Good news for you because QuickBooks has a feature that automatically calculates late fees or finance charges on overdue invoices. It can be a fixed amount or a percentage of the remaining balance per invoice, week, or month.
Once set up, the condition will be applied to future invoices that become overdue and exceed the grace period. They will have an additional late fee item, and their balances will be updated. All you need to do is send the updated invoice to your customer to make them aware that a late fee has been added to their invoices. Please check out this article for more information: Apply late fees to overdue invoices automatically in QuickBooks Online.
To enable to feature:
If you don't want to send out updated invoices manually, you can enable the Reminder feature and set strategic date of when to send a reminder. For example, if your invoice has a 5-day grace period, you can set the invoice reminder to be sent 6 days after the due date.
Let me know how I can help you handle late fees further, so we can make the most of the feature. Have a good one!
June 12, 2023 06:18 AMIt did not charge a late fee the day after.
Can I charge and print a late fee the same day I create it, or do I have to wait for the next day for it to show up?
June 12, 2023 08:30 AMThanks for following up with the Community, langesmn-gmail-c.
If you scheduled your late fee to apply the day after an invoice becomes overdue, but it didn't apply to overdue invoices as you instructed it to, I'd recommend double-checking your late fee settings.
With the automatic late fees feature, you can only apply late fees to overdue invoices. The fee will be applied according to how you set its Frequency and Grace Period options.
If you'd like to manually create and charge a fee to a customer, you also have the option of creating a service item to represent your fee, then you can add it to their invoice.
Please don't hesitate to send a reply if there's any additional questions. Have an awesome Monday!
November 08, 2023 02:16 PMFor accrual-based accounting, the automated finance charges need to be posted to invoices in the current/open accounting month (not the original invoice date), but QBO adds the finance charge back to the invoice date only. That process throws off closed financial statements if an invoice is over 30 days past due. Even when the month is marked as "closed" in the Advanced setup. Does QBO have a solution for this issue?
QuickBooks Team November 08, 2023 04:22 PMI'm here to share some details about the finance charge, sal74.
In QuickBooks Online (QBO), the late fee feature is designed to be applied to invoices based on their original date, rather than the current date. If you need to apply a late fee to an invoice that was created several months ago and your books are closed for that period, it is advisable to create a new invoice in the current period specifically for the late fee amount. This way, you can accurately reflect the late fee in the appropriate accounting period.
Alternatively, you can manually add the late fee to the invoice. You can do this by editing the invoice and adding the late fee as a separate line item.
You can count on me if you need help managing your sales transactions in QuickBooks. I'm always here to help you out.
November 09, 2023 04:10 PMThe issue is with late fees that belong to a past due invoice, that are charged on a monthly basis, adding a new entry to an invoice's original date throws off the closed financials. A finance software should have the ability to make future adjustments and post the entry to the current open month, so prior closed months are not affected. Having to manually shut off the finance charge automation for a late-paying client, and manually creating a new invoice for just the late fee then causes a new problem. The next time a late fee is due for these 2 past-due invoices, the automation won't apply the selected rate to the total amount due. Basically, the QBO answer for automated late fees doesn't work if you're on accrual. In the event the invoice is 30+ days past due, you have to turn off the automation and create separate/manual invoices. QBO should have an allowance for a future update to an invoice to be 'posted/dated' for the date of our choosing - either the invoice date or today's date, for example.