Handling invoice sent when local copy is lost
I use Quickbooks Desktop. I sent out several invoices recently, some of which have been paid, and some of which are still outstanding.
Unfortunately, some of the data on my QBs was lost when I changed to a new computer. I no longer have access to this local data.
When I went into QBs, all the clients who have paid showed a negative receivable (they had a payment credit but there was no invoice stored locally to offset that credit). For those clients who had paid but for whom there was not a local copy of the invoice, I just created a new invoice for them (a different invoice number than the original). When I did this, QBs asked me if I wanted to apply their existing payment credit to the new invoice that I created, and I said, "Yes." The result was that the negative receivable went away, the new invoice that I created shows as "Paid," and when I click on the link sent to the client to pay the old invoice, it remains as "Paid." I think this is the correct way to handle it but please confirm.
On the other hand, for the clients for whom the local copy of the invoice was lost but who have not paid it yet, there was no receivable shown because there was not a local copy of the invoice sent. For them, I also created a new invoice. However, there was no payment credit because they had not paid the invoice yet. Since that time as clients have paid the new invoice, the receivable is showing as zero, as expected, the new invoice shows as paid, as expected, but the old invoice shows as outstanding when I click the link for the client to pay. I am not sure that this last point matters, because the client will not go to the old invoice to pay it again (no reminders set up), but it does bother me that I have outstanding invoices floating around for which there is not a local copy. Is it advisable to delete these "virtual" invoices that were sent but for which there are no local copies? If so, how do I do that? Please let me know your thoughts, and if I handled this correctly.
Thank you for your help!