This is how I've been recording downpayments for years -- I make an invoice, use an item that ties to a liability account and receive the funds.

The issue I'm having now is that when I apply the downpayments to invoices, it's recording a negative sale on my sales tax liability report -- in June, when most of my clients use up their downpayments, my total sales amount was less than my taxable sales amount. 

This doesn't make sense.  A QB help person told me that I should just receive the money, but not make an  invoice. The problem there is that my A/R account shows a negative number since it's combining the real AR plus the liability account.  The banker doesn't like that.

I use QB Mac 2020 desktop. I'm totally confused.