The 1099 Transaction Detail Report in QuickBooks Online

The 1099 Transaction Detail Report lists the payments to your contractors that count toward a 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC, grouped by vendor, for a tax year. It is the report you and your accountant open at 1099 time to see exactly which payments feed each contractor's form and which box they land in, rather than trusting a single total. It reads from your 1099 setup, so it reflects the contractors you flagged and the accounts you mapped to 1099 boxes.

What the 1099 Transaction Detail Report shows

For each vendor you have marked to track for 1099s, the report lists the qualifying payments in the year: the date, transaction type, account, amount, and the 1099 box the account maps to, with a total per vendor. A payment appears only when it was recorded to a mapped 1099 account and paid to a flagged contractor, so the report is only as complete as that setup. QuickBooks also leaves out payments made by credit card, debit card, or a third-party service such as PayPal, because those payments fall under the 1099-K reporting rules for processors rather than your 1099-NEC or 1099-MISC; checks, cash, and direct transfers are what count toward the 1099.

This is a tax-year report rather than a cash-versus-accrual one. You set it to the calendar year you are filing for, and it does not toggle between cash and accrual basis; it is scoped to the 1099-eligible payments recorded in the year you choose.

Why a CPA or auditor asks for it

At 1099 time, often in January for contractor copies and 1099-NEC filing, your accountant uses this report to prepare and cross-check the 1099-NEC and 1099-MISC forms, confirm which vendors cross the reporting threshold, and make sure each account is mapped to the right box. Later, in an examination, it helps support the contractor payments you deducted and the detail behind the information returns you filed. Whether a given contractor needs a 1099, and which threshold applies, follows the IRS instructions for the year, so check those or your CPA. It pairs naturally with the 1099 Contractor Balance Detail, which shows the balances behind your 1099 vendors, and with our guide to the records an examiner asks a small business for.

How to run and export the 1099 Transaction Detail Report in QuickBooks Online

1. Go to the Reports menu and type "1099 Transaction Detail Report" into the report search box, then open it.
2. Set the report period to the tax year you are filing, which at filing time is usually the last calendar year.
3. If prompted, complete or confirm your 1099 setup, mapping accounts to 1099 boxes and flagging your contractors, so the report populates.
4. Run the report and review the total for each vendor.
5. Use the export control at the top of the report to export it to Excel or PDF. The file downloads to your computer.

If a vendor is missing or an amount looks low, it is usually the electronic-payment exclusion or a contractor that was never flagged for 1099 tracking.

Keeping the 1099 Transaction Detail Report after you cancel

You can include this report in your Books Backup archive on request, and you can also export it yourself before you cancel. Because you file 1099s in January for the prior year, the tax year and the QuickBooks company that holds the detail can be far apart by the time a question comes up. A cancelled paid QuickBooks Online company stays read-only for 12 months and is then permanently deleted, a trial only 90 days, and the IRS generally expects business records to be kept for at least three years, and longer in some cases. Keeping each year's 1099 Transaction Detail with your filed forms leaves the payment-by-payment support in reach after the company is gone.

Frequently asked questions

Why is a contractor missing or the amount lower than I expected?

Two reasons come up most often. Payments made by credit card, debit card, or a service like PayPal are left out of 1099 totals because those fall under the processor's 1099-K reporting rather than yours, and a vendor only appears if you flagged them to track for 1099s. Check the vendor's 1099 setting and how you paid them.

Do I have to set up 1099s for this report to work?

Yes. The report populates from your 1099 setup: the contractors you mark for 1099 tracking and the accounts you map to 1099 boxes. You can complete that setup even if you plan to file your 1099s outside QuickBooks.

How is this different from the 1099 Contractor Balance Detail?

This report totals the payments that count toward the 1099 boxes for a tax year. The 1099 Contractor Balance Detail lists your 1099-flagged vendors with the transactions and the balance you owe each of them, which is a different figure. Keeping both at filing time gives you the box totals and the vendor detail side by side.