My company's accounting is cash method.
in QB you can use the accrual method for book purposes and then convert to the cash basis for tax purposes. so for tax purposes, you have $15K of income. if you're using the cash basis for book purposes, the entry would simply be a debit to cash and a credit sales for $15K
if you're using the accrual method for book purposes then the $32K should have been reported as revenue in the year of sale and reflected as an account receivable. I'm assuming for book purposes you left the $32K on the books as an account receivable. so this year you make an entry debit cash $15K, debit bad debts $17K credit accounts receivable $32K. then when you convert to cash basis for tax purposes. the $15K should show up as revenue and the $17K bad debt should disappear (it becomes a debit to equity). in short, using the cash basis you can't have a bad debt because income is not recognized until received so if you never receive it you have no revenue and thus no bad debt.
