Why Is My Income Being Doubled?

Your income doubles when the same sale is recorded twice: once by FlexBooks, and once by your bank feed. FlexBooks has already recorded the income from every sale it syncs, so anything your bank feed adds on top of that is a second copy of money you already have in your books.

Nothing is broken when this happens. It is a step in the bank feed that has not been finished, or has been finished the wrong way, and it is reversible.

First, the one action that causes it

Open Bank transactions and look at your Pending tab. Find the deposits from your payment processor. Each row has a Match/Categorize column and an Action button.

If the Action button says Post, do not click it. Post in Categorize mode tells QuickBooks to create a brand new transaction for money that is already in your books. That is what doubles your income. Open the row and you will see a Match and Categorize toggle at the top, showing you which mode it is in.

QuickBooks will often suggest doing exactly the wrong thing here, and it will look convincing. The suggestions panel proposes one of your income accounts, ticks your customer name off against your customer list, and describes your business back to you. Read the small print in that panel. If it says “Based on transaction details. No related historical transactions”, QuickBooks is telling you it did not find anything to match and is guessing. Those are the rows that double your income.

Which setup are you on?

What you should do instead depends on where FlexBooks puts your card money, and there are two answers.

Open your Chart of Accounts and look for an account called Credit Card Processor. If it is there and it has a balance, you are on a clearing account. If it is not there, and your card money goes to Undeposited Funds, you are on the deposit-matching setup. Ask us if you are not sure and we will tell you.

If you have a Credit Card Processor account

FlexBooks does not create a deposit in your checking register at all, so there is nothing for you to match and there never will be. Every sale sits in Credit Card Processor until your processor pays you.

When that payout arrives in your bank feed, record it as a transfer out of Credit Card Processor, not as income. If your income has doubled, it is because a payout was categorized to an income account instead. See Clearing Accounts 101 and Fee Handling & Net vs. Gross Deposits.

If your card money goes to Undeposited Funds

FlexBooks creates a Deposit in your checking register for each batch your processor pays out. Your bank feed then brings in the same deposit a day or so later, and your job is to tell QuickBooks they are the same thing by matching them.

In Bank transactions, on the Pending tab:

Click the processor deposit you want to match
Switch the row to Match if it is not already
Set Record type to Deposits
Tick the deposit with the same amount and click Match

Setting Record type to Deposits is the step people miss. Left unset, the list fills up with open invoices and sales receipts and the deposit you want can be impossible to spot. If the first screen does not show it, use Find other matches and set Record type there.

Do not expect the dates to be identical. The deposit in your register is dated when your processor closed the batch, and your bank is paid a day or more later, so the FlexBooks deposit is normally dated a few days before the bank line. That is correct and it is not a reason to avoid matching them. QuickBooks searches a wide date range on its own, so the deposit will be in the list.

For the full walkthrough see How Do I Match My Deposits?.

How to fix income that is already doubled

Anything posted in error can be reversed, and reversing it removes the duplicate income.

In Bank transactions, open the Posted tab
Search for your processor deposits. TransFirst customers can search for tsys, which finds the bank descriptions beginning “Tsys Transfirst Cr”
Look at the Match/Category column. Rows that say Matched are already correct and should be left alone
For any processor deposit that was categorized to an income account instead, click Undo in the Action column
The row returns to your Pending tab. Handle it the right way for your setup, using the section above

Work through them oldest first, and check your Profit and Loss afterwards to confirm the total has come down by the amount you undid.

Other reasons deposits do not match

A bank rule posted them automatically. If you have a rule that categorizes processor deposits, it will keep posting them as income before you get a chance to match. Check your rules and switch off any that act on your processor deposits
The amount is different. If your processor takes its fees before paying you, the bank line and any deposit in your register can never be the same number, which is what the clearing account setup is for

If you have worked through this and your income is still doubled, see Troubleshooting Missing, Duplicate, or Unmatched Transactions, or write to us and we will look at it with you.