Can I offset a receivables against a payable as I owe a customer who is also a vendor?

Hello madsen-wayne,

Thanks for joining us! I hope you've had a great week and that QuickBooks Online continues to serve you well when it comes to managing your business's books. I'll do what I can to help you with this.

You're not alone in this situation with having a customer who is also a vendor, with transactions somewhat overlapping between them. I've seen this question a few times in community and my recommendation in these cases is to speak with an accountant to determine the best way to do this for you.

QuickBooks handles customers and suppliers separately, so there's no way to cross over with transactions with a simple click of a button. Rather, it takes some accounting know-how to know how to move the funds around between accounts.

Luckily, since we've had this question come up a few times, there have been accountant users here in community who've helped out. I'll leave you with some links below where accountants have helped out with this kind of question. It'll be a mix of responses for QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop, but the overall principles of the solution are the same between programs, so you should be good to go if you wanted to try it.

• I have a customer who is also a vendor. How to I apply a vendor credit to a customer invoice with Quickbooks Online
• I have a customer who is also a vendor. I have paid his bill minus what he owes us. How do I credit his receivable with the shortfall from my payment?
• Use a barter account for a customer that is also a vendor (This one is from our QuickBooks US community, but may also help.)

Even with reading these over, finding an accountant to work with is ideal in this situation. That way you can have the confidence that your books will be correct. The My Accountant tab in QuickBooks Online can help you connect with an accountant you're already working with or with a new accountant. That tab has a field for inviting an accountant via email to your books as well as the Find a pro to help button so you can search for accountants near you knowledgeable in the program.

Take care and enjoy your weekend.