Recurring Payments in QuickBooks Desktop | All-in-One Guide

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Setting up recurring payments in QuickBooks Desktop has one significant advantage – it saves a great deal of your time and effort. Running a business isn’t easy. Therefore, whenever there’s an opportunity to automate small tasks, you should take it. Thus, you can focus your energy and attention on more crucial operations and leadership.

Moreover, payment delays to vendors, independent contractors, and employees hamper your relations with them. Thus, automated payment is not a luxury you can afford but a necessity that every business owner should ensure.

In this blog, we will explore how to create, set up, change, stop, and delete recurring payments in QuickBooks Desktop. We will also brief you on how to schedule recurring bills, credit card payments, and recurring payments to vendors.

What are Recurring Payments in QuickBooks Desktop?

Recurring payments are basically automated payments that you can set up for your customers, clients, vendors, and suppliers. Once you set up recurring payments in QuickBooks Desktop, you can forget about it for the time being and divert your attention to more important tasks at hand.

It is obvious that you should create recurring payments only for those payments that are regular. For example, setting up recurring payments for a supplier that you only do business with seasonally doesn’t make sense. However, variable amounts are possible in recurring payments.

Recurring ACH Payments and What It Means

ACH stands for Automated Clearing House, which is a network of USA-only financial bodies approved by Nacha. Thus, when you set up ACH payments for a customer, client, or vendor, these payments are directly taken from the sender’s account and deposited in the receiver’s account using this network.

The network spans the US banks and credit card unions and is a very safe way to send and receive payments. It is also known as eCheck, direct debit, electronic bank transfer, and EFT.

Businesses and individuals utilize ACH for software subscriptions, eCommerce, rent and lease payments, loan payments, insurance premiums, and ongoing bills.

Before You Proceed to Set Up Recurring Payments in QuickBooks Desktop

We are going to walk you through the steps of creating, modifying, and deleting recurring payments in QuickBooks Desktop. However, before that, there are a few things you need to know.

• Ensure that your QB Payment and QB Desktop accounts are linked.
• QuickBooks doesn’t allow recurring payments for bank transfer transactions.
• Recurring transactions aren’t swiped and are processed at a keyed rate.
• Every time a transaction is processed, the owner gets notified on their primary email.

How to Set Up Recurring Credit Card Payments in QuickBooks Desktop

Let us guide you in creating a recurring credit card payment in QuickBooks Desktop step by step. There are two major ways you can do this – through your QB Desktop and through your QB Payments.

1.     Through QB Desktop

Here’s how you can set up recurring payments in QuickBooks Desktop for an invoice, sales receipt, or payment.

• Open QB Desktop and navigate to Customers
• Click on Credit Card Processing Activities.
• Choose Set Up Recurring Payments among all the options.
• Now, browse through the names of customers or find the customer you want through the search utility.
• For a new customer, click on Add New and add the customer’s name.
• You will see the option Invoice Type. You can choose among two types of invoices here.
• For invoice and payment, choose the Itemized List option. Fill in the various fields.
• For sales receipts, choose the Amount Only option. Fill in the amount.
• Once done, choose the payment method and fill in the payment information.
• Now verify all the information and ensure it matches the signed authorization form.
• If you need to make changes, click on Edit.
• Once done, click on submit.

When you add a new customer or update the customer information, you might want to restart your QuickBooks Desktop. This is because it takes time for the information on recurring charges to sync.

2.    Through QB Payments

You can set up recurring payments through QuickBooks Payments.

• For that, sign in to your QB Payments.
• Click on Processing Tools and choose Create a Recurring Payment option.
• Now, browse through the names of customers or find the customer you want through the search utility.
• For a new customer, click on Add New and add the customer’s name.
• Fill in all the fields.
• Once done, click on Next.
• Now verify all the information and ensure it matches the signed authorization form.
• If you need to make changes, click on Edit.
• Once done, click on submit.

How  to Set Up Recurring Vendor Payments in QuickBooks Desktop

It is handy to create recurring payments for your vendor or supplier. It reduces the time you have to spend on tedious tasks. Here is how you can set up recurring vendor payments in QuickBooks Desktop step by step. You can do so using an existing cheque or create a new cheque.

Step 1: Find or Create the Check

You can set up recurring vendor payments using an existing cheque. There are different ways you can find the existing cheque.

Using the Cheque Detail report

• Navigate to the Reports option in the top menu.
• Select Banking followed by Cheque Detail.
• You can also use the filter to help find the Cheque.
• Set the filter for transaction type to Cheque and for the name of all suppliers.
• Now, locate the cheque you wish to memorize and proceed to the next step.

Using the Register

• Navigate to the Banking option in the top menu.
• Select Use Register.
• Pick the suitable bank account you want.
• Now, locate the cheque you wish to memorize and proceed to the next step.

Using the Supplier Centre

• Navigate to the Suppliers option in the top menu.
• Select Supplier Centre.
• Click on the Transaction tab. Select Cheques
• Now, locate the cheque you wish to memorize and proceed to the next step.

Using a New Check

• Navigate to the Banking option in the top menu.
• Select Write Cheque.
• Fill in the fields for the information you wish to make recurring.
• Once done, save and close.

Step 2: Memorize the Cheque

Once you find the existing cheque or create a new one, the next step is to memorize the cheque. Here’s how to do that step by step.

• Go to the Cheque window.
• Choose Memorize or simply press Ctrl and M together.
• Select Reminder and fill in the fields for How Often and Next Date.
• Select how often you wish the cheque to be repeated.
• The Next Date is the date for your next payment.
• Fill in the number of times you wish to pay the vendor in the Number Remaining field.
• Choose how many days early you wish to make the transaction in the Days In Advance To Enter field.
• Once done, click on OK to memorize the cheques.
• You will land at the Write Cheques window.
• For autopay cheques, it is recommended to uncheck the Print Later option. If not, it will appear in the Print Cheque queue on the day it is recorded.
• Additionally, if you want, you can modify the cheque number to Epay or Autopayment.
• Once done, click on save and close.

How to View the Recurring Payments in QuickBooks Desktop

To view the recurring payments, open the Manage Recurring Payments page.

You can select how many records you wish to see at one time. To change the number of records you want to see, click on the View drop-down option at the upper right of the screen.

To View the Off Screen Payments

Moreover, you can also view the recurring payments that are actually off-screen. To do so, click the Previous or Next button on the lower right.

To Sort the list

To sort a list, tap on the column. Tap again to sort the list in reverse order.

To Check the Expired Entries

To check the expired entries, check on the top left of the window. You will see the Display Expired Entries checkbox, and select this checkbox.

Print the Report

• Navigate to the top of the list.
• Click on Actions followed by Print.

To Export to Microsoft Excel

• Navigate to the top of the list.
• Click on Actions followed by Export.

How to Change a Recurring Payment in QuickBooks

Let’s say you created a recurring payment. Now, the next question is, where can you manage and modify these payments?

Manage Recurring Payments

QuickBooks makes a Manage Recurring Payments section. You can view your recurring payments in QuickBooks Desktop and manage them as well. Here’s how you can open the Manage Recurring Payment page.

• For users who sync the recurring payments with the help of QuickBooks Desktop
• Open QuickBooks Desktop.
• Navigate to Customers and then Credit Card Processing Activities.
• Click on Set Up Recurring Payments.
• For users who sync the recurring payments with the help of standalone Recurring Payments
• Log in to the Online Service Center.
• Click on the menu bar and then Processing Tools.
• Choose Manage Recurring Payments.

Edit Recurring Payments

You can change the details in recurring payments, such as the name of the customer, the amount, address, card details, and more.

Let us see how to modify a recurring payment in QuickBooks Desktop.

• Tap on the customer’s name. It will show the details of the customer.
• Now, browse through the information and find what you want to edit. Click on the Edit button corresponding to it.
• Now, make the changes accordingly.

How and What Changes You Can Make

• In the case of itemized bills, you can only edit the amount before the first cycle. In non-itemized bills, you can change the amount anytime.
• You can change customer contact information and description as per your wish.
• You can change the start date only if the data is not yet passed. Check if the field is editable.
• In case the start date is passed, you can schedule the date of the next transaction.
• You can change the frequency if it is set to monthly or yearly.
• You can change the edit date of recurring payments even if it has passed. However, for the payments that aren’t recurring, you can’t change the end date for them.
• You can change the credit card number, cardholder name, and billing address.
• When you change the card expiration date, don’t enter the card number if you wish to keep the same card.

Remember: If you change the basic payment details, remember to get a new signed authorization from the customer.

Modify the Next Bill Date

QuickBooks automatically calculates the Next Bill Date based on Start Date, End Date, and Frequency.

• Check what schedules you can edit.
• For the schedules you can’t change, QuickBooks provides more information for them in the bullet list of editable fields.

Here’s how you can modify the billing schedule for the bills that don’t have frequency as monthly or yearly.

• For example, if you wish to change the payment from daily to weekly, you will need to delete the existing bill and create a new one.
• For the bills that you can’t edit, change them to stop recurring and create a new payment schedule as per your requirement.

How to Check Payment Activity

You can check the payments that were made for a recurring payment schedule. For that,

• Tap on the customer name you want to view the payment activity of.
• Now, select the Payment Activity option.

How to Delete Recurring Payments in QuickBooks

Here’s how you can delete the recurring payments in QuickBooks.

• Open the Manage Recurring Payments page.
• Navigate to Status.
• Open the Drop-down menu. Select Delete.

You can also delete the recurring payments through the Payment Details page. Here’s how you can do that.

• Tap on the customer name you want to view the payment activity of.
• Now, select the Payment Activity option.
• Find the Delete option in the Payment Details tab.
• The record for the payment will be deleted, and there won’t be any future payments.

You cannot see the payment details once you delete the recurring payment. However, you can see the same in the transaction history of your accounts.

How to Stop Recurring Payments in QuickBooks Desktop

You can stop the recurring payments in QuickBooks Desktop and resume them when you want. To do so,

• Open the Manage Recurring Payments page.
• Navigate to Status.
• Open the Drop-down menu. Select Suspend.

You can do the same on the Payment Details page.

• Tap on the customer name you want to view the payment activity of.
• Now, select the Payment Activity option.
• Find the Suspend option in the Payment Details tab.

How to Resume Suspended Recurring Payments in QuickBooks Desktop

When you wish to resume a suspending recurring payment, here’s how you can do so:

• Open the Manage Recurring Payments page.
• Navigate to Status.
• Open the Drop-down menu. Select Resume.

How  to Set Up Recurring Bills in QuickBooks

Did you know that you can set up recurring bills in QuickBooks using templates? Let us guide you on how to set up recurring vendor payments step by step.

• To begin with, open an existing bill or create a new one.
• Now, fill out the details you wish to set as default for the recurring bills. It can be the vendor, description, items, account, amount, etc.
• In the bottom section, you will see the Make Recurring option. Choose that.
• QB Online saves a copy of the recurring bill. It also creates a separate section for recurring bills, which you can use to change the preferences.
• Provide a name for the template.
• Now, fill in various drop-down fields.
• In the schedule section, choose how often you want the bills to be repeated.
• To select quarterly or half annually, select monthly and then edit the number of months as per your choice.
• If you wish to be reminded before the bill date, select how many days in advance you want to be reminded.
• If you want the bills to be created in advance before the due date, select Create _ days in advance. Choose how many days in advance you want the bill to be created.
• Decide the interval and start date for the recurring bill.
• For end, choose whether you want the transaction to end after a number of occurrences by a set end date or not to end recurring at all.
• Once done, save the template.

Final Words

This was all on how to create, modify, and delete recurring payments in QuickBooks Desktop. Stay tuned for more informational guides on QuickBooks and cloud accounting.