Update the income account of a product or service on past invoices

When you edit the income account of a product or service that’s already added to invoices, the change will not apply to existing invoices automatically.

Follow the steps in this article to first find all affected invoices, then update them.

Find invoices with products associated with the old income account

As an example, let’s assume you had a product Chair that was previously associated with the income account Sales. You edited the product to change the income account to a new account you created, Chair income. You now need to ensure the income from all your existing invoices with the product Chair added to them are tracked properly under Chair income.

The first step is to find all existing invoices that still have the product Chair under the income account Sales. To do this:

1. Log in to your account at waveapps.com.
2. On the left navigation menu, click Reports.
3. Scroll down and click Account Transactions (General Ledger).
4. On the report, click the Account field dropdown and select the old income account that was associated with the product or service you updated. In the example above, you would select Sales.
5. Set the correct date range to ensure you get a list of all the invoices that still have products or services associated with the old income account.
6. Ensure the report type is set Accrual to also include any unpaid invoices.

The report will show you all transactions associated with the old income account, including invoices. You can identify invoices from the list as their description appears as Name of the customer - Invoice number - product name. As an example, if invoice number 5 was for the product Chair, sold to your customer Arthur, the description on the report for the invoice would show Arthur - 5 - Chair.

Update the income account on existing invoices

1. From the account transactions report, click on each invoice that’s under the old income account. The invoice opens in a new tab.
2. Click Edit invoice.
3. Click the trash can icon next to the line item(s) under the old income account to delete them.
4. Re-add the deleted item(s) now under the updated income account. To do so, click Add an item, then select the item from the list.
5. Click Save and continue.
6. Navigate back to the tab with the account transactions report, then repeat the steps above for all invoices.

Once you’ve completed these steps, all your existing invoices will be tracked under the updated income account. In the example we used, all existing invoices that had the product Chair will now have their income recorded as Chair income.

To confirm the income is being tracked correctly, navigate to your account transactions report, and filter it by the new income account.

Learn how to track sales and purchases for a product or service.