Overview
When syncing Shopify orders to QuickBooks as a Daily Summary, MyWorks supports a key accounting requirement for stores that ship products after the date of sale: recognizing revenue at fulfillment, not at sale.
Many businesses — especially those selling pre-orders, made-to-order goods, subscriptions, or anything with a shipping delay — need to defer income until the product actually ships. From an accrual accounting standpoint, the sale isn't truly "earned" income until the customer receives what they paid for.
When this option is enabled, MyWorks will:
Record income from unfulfilled Shopify order line items to a Deferred Revenue liability account in QuickBooks in the Daily Summary we post on the date the order occurred.
Once an order (or specific line items) are fulfilled in Shopify, MyWorks will move that income out of Deferred Revenue and into your normal sales / income accounts in the Daily Summary we post on the date those line items were fulfilled.
Payments will always post as normal, for reconciliation — the cash side of the transaction is unaffected.
The end result: your QuickBooks income accounts always reflect fulfilled sales, and your Deferred Revenue balance always reflects orders you've been paid for but haven't yet shipped.
Setup
To enable this, visit MyWorks Sync > Settings > Order in the MyWorks app in your Shopify store. With your sync method set to Daily Summary (or Based on Order Tag with Daily Summary as one of the options), you'll see the following two settings:
Deferred Revenue support for unfulfilled orders
Record income from unfulfilled orders to a deferred revenue account in QuickBooks.
QuickBooks Deferred Revenue Account
Select the QuickBooks Deferred Revenue account to use for unfulfilled order income.
Tip: If you don't already have a Deferred Revenue account in QuickBooks, you can create one in QuickBooks under Chart of Accounts > New — typically as an Other Current Liability with a detail type of Other Current Liabilities. Once created, refresh your account list in MyWorks and select it in the dropdown above.
How it works
Once the setting is enabled, MyWorks adjusts Daily Summary logic in two key ways:
1. The Daily Summary now keys off fulfillment date, not order date
When a Daily Summary is generated for a given day, MyWorks looks at the line items that were fulfilled on that day — regardless of when the order was originally placed. This means a single Daily Summary may include:
Orders placed and fulfilled the same day
Fulfillments for orders placed days, weeks, or months earlier
2. Income posts to Deferred Revenue first, then moves to sales when fulfilled
Scenario | Payment posts to | Income posts to |
Order placed and paid today, not yet fulfilled | Mapped clearing / bank account (as normal) | Deferred Revenue (credit) |
Order placed on a previous day, fulfilled today | (no payment activity — already recorded) | Deferred Revenue (debit) → mapped Sales / Income account (credit) |
Order placed, paid, and fulfilled all on the same day | Mapped clearing / bank account (as normal) | Mapped Sales / Income account (as normal) |
Partial fulfillments are handled at the line-item level, so if only some products in an order ship, only those products' income moves out of Deferred Revenue.
Example
Imagine a customer places a $100 pre-order today. Three days later, you fulfill it.
Today's Daily Summary records:
Debit: Shopify Clearing — $100
Credit: Deferred Revenue — $100
Three days later's Daily Summary records:
Debit: Deferred Revenue — $100
Credit: Apparel Sales (or your mapped income account) — $100
At any point in time, your QuickBooks Deferred Revenue balance equals the total value of orders you've been paid for but haven't yet shipped — a clean, audit-friendly view of your unearned revenue.
Things to keep in mind
Time zone: Like all Daily Summaries, this follows the time zone set in your Shopify store settings — fulfillments are grouped by the day they occurred in your store's local time.
Historical fulfillments: When you first enable this setting, only fulfillments occurring on or after the enable date will route through Deferred Revenue. Historical orders already synced to income accounts won't be retroactively re-posted.
Refunds: Refunds continue to post as they do today. If you refund an unfulfilled order, the refund and the original deferred income will offset within Deferred Revenue.
COGS: If you also have Cost of Goods Sold syncing enabled, COGS is recognized at fulfillment alongside the income recognition — keeping your matching principle intact.
Individual orders: Looking for similar functionality when syncing orders as individual invoices or sales receipts (not Daily Summaries)? See our companion article: Recording Deferred Revenue for Unfulfilled Products in Individual Orders.