If you keep your books in QuickBooks Desktop, you don't have to key each day's ticket sales by hand. The ticket ledger turns a day's sales into one general journal entry that you import as an IIF file.
One-time setup: your account names
QuickBooks matches every line of the file to an account by its exact name, and it does not create missing accounts. Before your first import:
- Open your venue from Manage Venues, click Edit details in the Setup card, and open the Accounting → QuickBooks Desktop card.
- Type each account's name exactly as it appears in your QuickBooks chart of accounts. For a subaccount, use
Parent:Child(for exampleIncome:Ticket Sales). Leave a field blank to use the name shown in grey. - Optional: set a Class (optional) to stamp on every line, and change the Memo prefix that marks these entries in QuickBooks — it starts as "Noctern"; clear it for no prefix. If your venue uses event categories, open Ticket sales account per event category (optional) to send each category's ticket revenue to its own account.
- Click Save QuickBooks Desktop Accounts. Saving needs the Venue settings permission.
Then make sure every account exists in QuickBooks (Lists → Chart of Accounts):
| Setting | Default name | Suggested account type |
|---|---|---|
| Cash | Cash on Hand | Bank or Other Current Asset |
| Card sales (clearing) | Stripe Clearing | Bank or Other Current Asset |
| Checks and other tenders | Undeposited Funds | Other Current Asset (QuickBooks creates this one for you) |
| Gift card liability | Gift Card Liability | Other Current Liability |
| Ticket sales (revenue) | Ticket Sales | Income |
| Discounts | Discounts Given | Income (contra) or Expense |
| Sales tax | Sales Tax Payable | Other Current Liability |
| Merchant fees | Merchant Fees | Expense |
| Refunds | Refunds | Income (contra) |
| Donations | Donations Income | Income |
| Ticket delivery fees | Ticket Sales | Income |
| Day-of-show upcharges | Ticket Sales | Income |
| Box-office surcharge | Ticket Sales | Income |
The last three post to Ticket Sales until you name a different account. Box-office surcharge is your own box office fee — it is your revenue, not a Noctern fee, so keep it off Merchant fees.
Account names can be up to 159 characters and cannot contain a double quote.
If you use QuickBooks' own sales tax feature, ask your accountant whether journal entries should post to its Sales Tax Payable account or to a separate liability account — then enter that name.
Downloading the journal
- Open the Reports hub (Reports in the admin sidebar), click Ticket ledger under Finance, pick the day in Range — Yesterday is the usual choice the next morning — and click Run.
- Scroll to QuickBooks Desktop journal under the ledger. It previews the entry: every account with its debit or credit, and a Total line marked Balanced.
- Check it against the day, then click Download QuickBooks journal (IIF). Download CSV of the same journal gives you the same lines as a spreadsheet, if you'd rather copy them in.
For a range longer than one day (for example Last 7 days), the file holds one journal entry per day, each dated that day. Days on which no money moved have no entry. A journal covers at most 62 days. The Performance, Tender, Seller and imported-history filters don't apply to the journal — it always covers every sale on the day.
If the preview says some accounts still use the default names, those accounts must exist in QuickBooks under exactly the names shown, or you should set your own in the settings card first. If it says No money moved in this range — nothing to import, there is nothing to download.
Importing into QuickBooks Desktop
- Back up your company file first (File → Back Up Company).
- Go to File → Utilities → Import → IIF Files and choose the downloaded
.iiffile. - QuickBooks confirms the import. Open Company → Make General Journal Entries (or the register of any account in the entry) to see it. The entry number is
NOC-followed by the date, for exampleNOC-260910for September 10, 2026.
Import each day once. Importing the same file again adds a second copy of the entry — delete the duplicate in QuickBooks if that happens.
Intuit no longer develops the IIF format, but QuickBooks Desktop still imports it. If your version asks you to confirm the import or a "legacy" format, confirm it.
What each line means
| Line | Debit or credit | What it holds |
|---|---|---|
| Cash | Debit | Cash taken for tickets and gift cards, less cash refunds given back that day |
| Card sales (clearing) | Debit | Card payments for tickets and gift cards, less card refunds — before processing fees |
| Checks and other tenders | Debit | Checks and other tenders, less refunds paid back the same way |
| Gift card liability | Debit | Gift cards redeemed as payment |
| Discounts | Debit | Promo code and other discounts on the day's tickets |
| Ticket sales (exchange credit) | Debit | Value carried over from an exchanged ticket, so the exchange isn't counted as a second sale |
| Refunds | Debit | Refunds made that day, without the sales tax inside them |
| Sales tax (refunded) | Debit | The sales tax given back on those refunds |
| Ticket sales | Credit | Ticket revenue before discounts. All-in prices are shown without the fees, tax and box office fee inside them. One line per account when you send categories to different accounts |
| Ticket sales (add-ons) | Credit | Add-ons and small order-level adjustments |
| Gift card liability | Credit | Gift cards sold, and — on its own line — refunds credited to a gift card or venue credit |
| Sales tax | Credit | Sales tax collected |
| Merchant fees | Credit | Noctern service and card fees paid by buyers, including the card fee on a gift card sale |
| Donations | Credit | Donations added to ticket orders at checkout |
| Ticket delivery fees | Credit | Mail and delivery fees buyers paid |
| Day-of-show upcharges | Credit | Day-of-show upcharges on tickets bought on the day |
| Box-office surcharge | Credit | Your own box office fee |
A line that comes to zero is left out. On a day with more refunds than sales, a tender line such as Cash can come out negative; it is then shown as a credit instead of a debit.
- Tickets are booked on the day they were sold, at their original amounts.
- Refunds are booked on the day the money went back, whenever the ticket was sold. Refunds made outside Noctern (for example directly in the card processor's dashboard) are not on the journal.
- Comps move no money, so they have no lines. They appear on the ticket ledger only.
- Imported history from your previous ticketing system is already in your books and is never on the journal.
- Processing fees are not on the daily journal. They come off your card payout: when you record the payout, credit the clearing account for the full amount, debit your bank for what arrived, and debit Merchant Fees for the fees withheld. The clearing account then comes back to zero, and Merchant Fees shows what fees really cost you. See Payout reports.
When it doesn't balance
The journal is built so that debits always equal credits. If a day ever doesn't balance, Noctern shows an error instead of a file and names the day — nothing is downloaded, so nothing half-right reaches your books.
- Open the Ticket ledger for that day and look for a row that doesn't add up — see how a ledger row adds up.
- Contact Noctern support with the day and the order, and hold that day's import until it's fixed. Import the other days as usual.
If QuickBooks itself rejects the file, it is almost always an account name that doesn't exist in your company file, or one that differs by a space or a capital letter. Fix the name in the settings card (or add the account in QuickBooks) and download the file again.
Schedule the ticket ledger to arrive every morning for Yesterday (see Scheduling and emailing reports automatically), then open the report and download that day's journal.