How Do I Unpost a Vendor Invoice that was Posted to QuickBooks?

Once a vendor invoice is approved, it can be posted to your external accounting system (e.g., QuickBooks). With QuickBooks Online, posting creates a bill (or a vendor credit, for a negative total) in QuickBooks. With QuickBooks Desktop, posting marks the invoice ready for the next .iif export. An invoice may also reach Paid status once payment has been recorded in QuickBooks.

There are times where you may wish to unpost a vendor invoice in order to make edits.  Follow the steps below!

Unposting a Vendor Invoice

If a vendor invoice has a status of Posted or Paid, you can roll it back to Approved status using the Unpost button.

Before the Unpost button will appear, an administrator must enable the Allow Vendor Invoice Unposting setting under Settings → Accounting → Integration.

When Can You Unpost?

You can unpost an invoice when all of the following are true:

  • The invoice status is Posted or Paid.
  • The invoice’s fiscal period is open.
  • None of its billable expenses are on a client invoice that has been sent (Sent, Delinquent, Paid, or a write-off or collections status) or on a credit memo that has been sent (Sent or Fully Applied). Client invoices that are Not Approved, On Hold, Approved or Voided don’t block unposting.
  • QuickBooks Online only: the bill still exists in QuickBooks. If it was deleted there, unposting fails with an error from QuickBooks.

If billable expenses have already been sent to a client, the Unpost button still appears, but clicking it shows “There are billable expenses linked to a sent client invoice or credit memo” and the invoice isn’t unposted.

How to Unpost an Invoice

When viewing a posted or paid vendor invoice, an Unpost button will appear in the top right corner.  

  1. Click that button.

  1. Click OK to confirm. With QuickBooks Online, the message reads “…This will revert it to Approved status and delete the bill from Quickbooks Online.” With QuickBooks Desktop, it reads “…This will revert it to Approved status.”

What Happens When You Unpost

After confirming the roll back dialog:

  • The invoice status reverts to Approved.
  • QuickBooks Online: the bill (or vendor credit) is deleted from QuickBooks.
  • QuickBooks Desktop: nothing changes in QuickBooks Desktop. ⚠️ If the invoice was already exported, its bill stays in QuickBooks Desktop. When you post the invoice again, it goes into the next export, so delete the original bill in QuickBooks Desktop first to avoid a duplicate.
  • The invoice balance resets to the adjusted total current charges.
  • Any incidents acknowledged during the invoice's audit go back to unacknowledged.
  • Billable expenses are not rolled back.  They remain attached to the invoice and are unaffected.

From Approved status, the invoice can be reviewed, adjusted, and re-posted when ready.

If you have additional questions or need more in depth information, please feel free to send us a message using the help beacon in the lower right-hand corner.

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