How to send a statement in QuickBooks

Pick the type that shows the customer what they need. Balance Forward covers a date range and lists invoices and payments with the current balance. Open Item lists every unpaid invoice from a start date through to today. Transaction Statement lists all transactions recorded within a date range.

Set the layout once, before your first send. In Settings, select Account and settings and open the Sales tab. In the Statements section, choose List each transaction as a single line, or List each transaction including all detail lines. Switch on Show ageing table at bottom of statement if you want one, then select Save.

Check how any sub-customers are billed. When a sub-customer is set to Bill parent customer, its transactions only reach a statement if you create the statement for the parent customer.

1. Go to All apps, select Customer Hub, then select Customers & leads.
2. Tick the box next to each customer who should get a statement.
3. Open the Batch actions dropdown and select Create statements.
4. In the Statement type dropdown, choose Balance Forward, Open Item or Transaction Statement.
5. Set the Statement date, the Start date and the End date.
6. Check the address in the Email Address field.
7. Select Save and send.
8. Look over the preview window, then select Send.

To print a statement or save it as a PDF without emailing it, select + New or + Create and choose Statement. Set the Statement type, enter the Statement date, and pick Open, Overdue or All in the Customer balance status field. Check the Start date and End date, tick the customer and select Print or Preview. Use the print icon to print, or the download icon to choose where to save the PDF, then select Save.

Each statement you generate is kept in QuickBooks. To find one later, open the customer's profile from Customers & leads and select the Statements tab, using the Date dropdown to filter the list. Select a statement, then choose Send to email it as a PDF attachment, Print or Preview to open the PDF, or Delete to remove the statement record from QuickBooks.

A statement isn't a frozen snapshot. Intuit says statements update automatically to reflect changes made to the transactions they're built from, so editing one of the customer's invoices or payments flows through to the statement.

Intuit describes statements as a way to remind customers about payment deadlines coming up, unpaid balances and overdue invoices, and they can also list finance charges and sub-customer activity.

If a customer you ticked didn't get a statement, they probably had no activity matching your statement type and dates, because QuickBooks skips customers in that case. Try a wider date range or a different statement type. If a sub-customer's transactions are missing, check whether it bills its parent customer, and create the statement for the parent instead.