Incorrect.

I own an accounting firm and I make tons of journal entries every single day. What prompted the search that led me here is that I have a client who takes refundable retainers against financial deliverables (when he consults on the deliverable, but the "deal" doesn't come to fruition, he refunds part of the fee, and that part is held in escrow -- and recorded in a liability account -- until satisfaction). When the deliverable is realized, he "earns" the retainer (debit liability account, credit income) and if he fails to produce a deliverable, he returns it (debit liability, credit cash).

There is no way to do this (and about a million other things) with the standard workflows like "bills" and "invoices" found in QuickBooks. This isn't some limitation of the software or a hack; journal entries are the basis of all accounting. Those "modules" you use (like when you press the "expense" button) are just a way to hide the journal entry the accounting software is making in the background!

Every single day accountants all over the world make millions of journal entries. Without them your books would not be correct, unless you're running the most simple of businesses.

This thread is about how journal entries don't work in a fundamental way in QuickBooks Online. I don't have the time or inclination to export a report to Excel and manually enter the account name: the software should be producing sensible reports becuase we pay for it. This isn't some "nice to have" add-on. It's not a feature request. This is basic functionality one should expect from any accounting software.

The most lame accounting software from (sorry Linux) GNUCash to Wave even does this correctly for goodness sakes. Get it together, QuickBooks: this is embarassing. 🤦‍