Why do both quickbooks online and desktop 2017 add my expenses to income and show the total as profit?

Hello there, @highambitions.

Let's verify if the account used for your expense transactions are correct. 

You'll need to go back into the expenses that you have and see if the account used is an asset account. This can be the reason why it's adding your expenses to your income.

Once verified, and the problem continues, we can run the verify and rebuild process for your QuickBooks Desktop to verify if the issue is data-related.

Here's how:

1. Click on File at the top menu bar.
2. Select on Utilities.
3. Click on Rebuild Data.
4. Select OK when you see Rebuild has completed.

After that, proceed with verifying the data:

1. Click on File.
2. Select on Utilities.
3. Click on Verify Data.
4. If you see QuickBooks detected no problem with your data, select OK. You may continue using your company file.

For complete instructions about this process, please see this link: Resolve data damage on your company file.

For your QuickBooks Online, I'd suggest reaching out to our Customer Care Team so they can check on your transactions set up. 

If the same thing happens for QuickBooks Desktop after trying the steps above, you may get in touch with our Desktop Care Team to further isolate this matter.  

I'm also including here a link about the chart of accounts for your future reference.

Don't hesitate to reach back out to me if there's anything else you need. I'd be happy to help. Enjoy your weekend!

@BettyJaneB 

You'll need to go back into the expenses that you have and see if the account used is an asset account. This can be the reason why it's adding your expenses to your income.

Ahhh no that has absolutely nothing to do with the issue at all, and the statement is not true either

@highambitions 

If you are using banking downloads, that is most likely the issue, they are being imported wrong.  To find out you need to open a banking download in excel or something and look at entries for expense and income, one will be positive and the other negative for that type of entry.

I do not use banking downloads because of problems like this, so you will have to determine whether income is posting as a positive or negative.  Most likely positive so all expenses should show as a negative number

in products and services, if you have plus and have marked the item as being both purchased and sold, edit the item and insure that the purchase side has an expense account selected and the sales side has an income account selected. 

IF, if you do not have plus with that two sided feature - you can NOT use an item set up for expense on an invoice or sales receipt.  Doing so will not increase income but will lower expense which serves to increase net income