How to Make a Deposit in QuickBooks

Making a deposit in QuickBooks Desktop is a two-step process that trips up new users more than almost any other task. The first step is receiving the payment, which places it in a holding account called Undeposited Funds. The second step is recording the bank deposit itself, which moves those funds from the holding account to your actual bank account and creates a record that matches your physical deposit slip. When both steps are done correctly, your books reconcile cleanly against the bank statement. Skipping the Undeposited Funds step is the single most common cause of reconciliation headaches in QuickBooks Desktop.

What Is Making a Deposit in QuickBooks?

In QuickBooks Desktop, making a deposit is the act of recording the transfer of funds from the Undeposited Funds account to a bank account, matching what you actually deposited at the bank.

Undeposited Funds is a built-in QuickBooks account that acts as a temporary holding area. When you receive a customer payment or record a sales receipt, QuickBooks places the money in Undeposited Funds rather than sending it directly to your checking or savings account. This design reflects real-world banking: you often receive multiple checks on the same day and take them all to the bank as a single deposit. By batching payments together in Undeposited Funds and then depositing them as a group, your QuickBooks register shows one deposit line that matches the one line your bank statement shows.

This matters because reconciliation works by matching QuickBooks entries to bank statement entries one for one. If you record five separate $500 payments and your bank shows one $2,500 deposit, QuickBooks and the bank will never agree. The Undeposited Funds workflow solves this problem automatically.

Before You Begin

• Confirm you have already entered the customer payments or sales receipts you want to deposit. Go to Customers > Receive Payments or Customers > Enter Sales Receipts to check.
• Know which bank account you are depositing into (checking, savings, or another account in your chart of accounts).
• Have your physical deposit slip on hand. The amounts in QuickBooks must match the slip exactly.
• Note the date you made or will make the bank deposit, not the date you received the checks.
• If you are recording a deposit that is not from a customer (owner investment, loan proceeds, refund), know which account you will credit: an equity account, a liability account, or an income account.

Step-by-Step Guide

Method 1: Deposit Payments from Undeposited Funds

This is the standard method for depositing customer payments that were received through Customers > Receive Payments or Customers > Enter Sales Receipts.

1. Open QuickBooks Desktop.
2. From the top menu, go to Banking > Make Deposits.
3. The Payments to Deposit dialog box opens. It lists all payments currently sitting in Undeposited Funds.
4. Review the list. You can filter by payment method using the View payment method type dropdown at the top if you want to work through check deposits and credit card deposits separately.
5. Check the box next to each payment you want to include in this deposit. The checked payments must match your physical deposit slip.
6. Click OK. The Make Deposits window opens, showing the payments you selected.
7. In the Deposit To field at the top, select the bank account you are depositing into.
8. In the Date field, enter the date you are depositing the money at the bank.
9. Add a memo if needed (optional but helpful for audit trails).
10. Review the deposit total at the bottom. It must match your deposit slip total.
11. Click Save & Close.

QuickBooks records the deposit, moves the funds from Undeposited Funds to the selected bank account, and creates a single register entry matching your bank statement.

Method 2: Record a Direct Deposit Not from Customers

Use this method when you receive money that is not a customer payment: an owner investment, a bank loan, a tax refund, a vendor rebate, or any other cash inflow that does not originate from an invoice or sales receipt.

1. From the top menu, go to Banking > Make Deposits.
2. If the Payments to Deposit dialog opens and there are no items to select for this deposit, click Cancel (or just click OK without checking anything) to go directly to the Make Deposits window.
3. In the Make Deposits window, leave the top section (which shows any Undeposited Funds items) as is. Scroll down to the Received From table at the bottom of the window.
4. In the Received From column, enter the name of the source (for example, the owner's name or the lender's name).
5. In the From Account column, select the account that should be credited. For an owner investment, use an equity account such as Owner's Contribution. For a loan, use your loan liability account.
6. In the Memo column, add a description.
7. In the Chk No. column, enter a reference number if applicable.
8. In the Pmt Meth. column, select the payment method.
9. Enter the amount in the Amount column.
10. Confirm the Deposit To field shows the correct bank account and the Date is correct.
11. Click Save & Close.

Method 3: Record an Owner Investment as a Deposit

Owner investments are a common scenario for small business owners using QuickBooks Desktop. They require a specific account setup to record correctly.

Before recording the deposit, confirm you have an equity account for this purpose. If not, create one:

1. Go to Lists > Chart of Accounts.
2. Click Account at the bottom and select New.
3. Choose Equity as the account type.
4. Name it something like "Owner's Investment" or "Owner's Contribution."
5. Click Save & Close.

Then record the deposit using Method 2 above, selecting your new equity account in the From Account column.

Tips and Variations

Splitting a deposit between different accounts: In the Received From table on the Make Deposits screen, you can add multiple rows and assign different accounts. This is useful when a single check covers multiple purposes.

Recording a bank service fee: If your bank deducted a fee from the deposit, add a row in the Received From table, select "Bank Charges" (or your bank fee expense account) in the From Account column, and enter the fee as a negative number. The deposit total will reflect the net amount.

Depositing checks and cash separately: Some businesses prefer to run separate deposits for checks and cash. There is no QuickBooks rule requiring you to combine them. Simply create two separate deposit records on the same date, one for checks and one for cash.

Changing a deposit: If you need to edit a deposit after saving it, go to Banking > Make Deposits, use the Previous button or the Find feature to locate the deposit, make your changes, and save. Do not delete the original payment transaction to fix a deposit error; edit the deposit record directly.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Depositing directly to the bank account on the Receive Payments screen. Some users change the default deposit account on the payment screen from Undeposited Funds to their bank account directly. This prevents the payment from appearing in the Make Deposits dialog and creates a separate bank entry that will not match your actual deposit slip if you deposited multiple items together.

Using the wrong date. The deposit date in QuickBooks should match the date the funds appear on your bank statement, not the date you received the check. Using the wrong date causes the transaction to appear in the wrong reconciliation period.

Not reconciling Undeposited Funds regularly. If payments accumulate in Undeposited Funds without being deposited, the balance on your balance sheet becomes inaccurate. Run a report on Undeposited Funds monthly to catch any payments that were received but never deposited.

Deleting a payment instead of editing the deposit. If a deposit contains the wrong payment, open the deposit and uncheck the payment. Do not delete the original payment transaction; that will remove it from the records entirely and create a discrepancy.

Forgetting to match the deposit total to the bank statement. If the deposit total in QuickBooks does not match the bank statement, the reconciliation will not close. Always verify the total before saving.

When to Call Support

Contact QuickBooks support phone number if you encounter any of the following:

• Payments are not appearing in the Payments to Deposit dialog even though they were entered correctly
• Undeposited Funds has a large unexplained balance and you cannot identify which payments it contains
• A deposit was saved but is not appearing in the bank account register
• QuickBooks crashes or freezes when opening the Make Deposits window
• You need to undo a large number of incorrectly recorded deposits and are unsure how to do so without damaging the data

You can also access Intuit support through the Help menu inside QuickBooks Desktop or via the QuickBooks contact page.