When I make up an invoice and save it, it automatically marks it as paid before it is even sent to the customer . How can I stop this from happening?

Welcome to the Community, @bigbrianelectric. I can help stop the automatic paid invoices in QuickBooks Online.

The possible reason why the newly-created invoice was marked as paid is that the Automatically apply credits feature was turned on. This feature will automatically apply payments to the new invoice and mark it as paid if your customer has a credit balance.

To get this resolved, let's first turn off the feature to avoid this from happening in the future. Here's how:

1. Click the Gear icon, then select Account and Settings.
2. Select Advanced from the left menu and go to the Automation section.
3. Toggle the Automatically apply credits option to turn it off.
4. Click Save, then Done.
    

Once done, let's open the created invoice that was marked as paid and delete the applied payment. This way, it'll mark the invoice as unpaid.

1. Click Sales from the left menu, then find the newly-created invoice.
2. Select the 1 payment link at the upper right-hand above the PAID payment status.
3. Hit the date link.
4. On the Receive Payment page, select the invoice.
5. Click More at the bottom and select Delete, then choose Yes to confirm.
    

I'm adding this article to learn more about receiving payments and applying for credits in QuickBooks Online:

• Record invoice payments in QuickBooks Online
• Handle a customer credit or overpayment in QuickBooks Online
   

Keep us updated if you have further questions about your sales transactions. Doing so helps us further assist you. Have a good one!