Reversing entries

Post the mirror image of a journal on a later date — manually or scheduled.

A reversing entry is the exact mirror of an existing journal: every debit becomes a credit and vice versa, posted on a later date.

Why: you accrue an estimated expense at month-end so the period is fairly stated. On day one of the next month you back the estimate out, so when the real bill arrives it can be recorded normally without double-counting.

Two ways to do it:

• Now — open any journal entry and choose Reverse. Pick the date.
• Scheduled — set an auto-reverse date on the entry, or tick auto-reverse on a recurring journal. Run Post due reversals (or let the scheduler do it) and anything that has come due is reversed.

Safeguards: an entry can only be reversed once. The original and its reversal each record a link to the other, so the pair is always traceable.

Notably, QuickBooks Online cannot schedule an automatic reversal — this is one place IntuBu does more, not less.