Rebate accounting

Admittedly, I am lost. I was thrown into a temporary accounting role for a small company despite not having any accounting experience. I was chosen because I just “know numbers”. We do have a professional tax accountant looking over things so I lean on them a lot. This is more a general practice question.

Our team sells products that come with local energy rebates. The current local rebate workflow is such

1) the customer gets an immediate reduction in price if they buy a qualified product.

2) This is shown on the invoice with a line item for the original product price, a line item for the rebate amount that reduces price and line item for tax. The final sale revenue is equal to final sale price after rebate plus any applicable sales tax.

3) after the sale is finished, the energy company sends us a check for the same amount of the rebate line item.

4) That rebate check from energy company is deposited to our bank account.

In quickbooks, the person I am filling in for sent these rebates to COGs even though our bank account accepts the cash and balance increases… is this correct? Wouldn’t this rebate check increase income rather than increase expenses?