Create Bills

Enter a vendor bill, choose the payable or paid-now route, and review line accounts before saving.

New bill drawer showing Pay from, default expense account, and line account

When To Use This

  • You need to enter a vendor bill.
  • You need the bill to stay in Draft, move to Open, or be recorded as paid immediately.
  • You need to review vendor, due date, Pay from, and line accounts before saving.

Before You Start

  • A vendor record exists.
  • The expense or other posting accounts for the bill lines are available.
  • You know whether Pay from should use an Accounts Payable control account or a cash, bank, or credit-card settlement account.
  • If you plan to record payment later, the cash or bank account you want to pay from is available.

Steps

  1. Open Bills.
  2. Select New.
  3. Complete the bill header:
  • Bill #
  • Vendor
  • Pay from
  • Default expense account
  • Date
  • Due date
  • Status
  • Terms, if needed
  1. Choose Pay from carefully:
  • Use an Accounts Payable control account when the bill should stay on the open accrual path.
  • Use a cash, bank, or credit-card settlement account only when the bill is being recorded as paid immediately.
  • Payables control routing and settlement-account routing are alternative paths, not two fields to combine on the same bill.
  1. Add one or more bill lines.
  2. For each line, choose the Account that should receive the expense or other debit.
  • Default expense account fills blank line accounts when the drawer supports that fallback.
  • The line-level Account is the posting source for that line.
  1. Complete the line description, quantity, unit cost, and review the calculated amount.
  2. Add Tax total or Memo if needed.
  3. Decide how the bill should be saved:
  • Draft stores the bill without posting Accounts Payable.
  • Open stores the bill and posts the payable when Pay from is an Accounts Payable control account.
  • Choosing a settlement account in Pay from can route the bill through the paid-now path instead of leaving an open payable.
  1. Save the bill.
  2. Review the bill list to confirm the expected Status, Total, and Balance.

What Happens When You Save

  • Saving a bill as Draft does not post a journal entry.
  • Saving a bill as Open, or updating a bill from a non-open status to Open, posts the bill recognition entry when Pay from is an Accounts Payable control account.
  • Saving a paid-now bill with a cash, bank, or credit-card settlement account in Pay from posts directly between the bill line accounts and that settlement account.
  • Line-level Account values control the expense or debit side of the bill posting.

If Something Looks Wrong

What You See What To Check What To Do Next
The bill stayed in Draft Whether Status was set to Draft before saving Edit the bill and choose the intended workflow status before saving again
The bill did not stay open as a payable Whether Pay from used a settlement account instead of an Accounts Payable control account Use the payables route when the vendor is still owed
The bill posts to the wrong expense account Line-level Account values Correct line accounts before saving or use a posted correction path if already posted
Vendor defaults seem to have chosen the account The bill line accounts Review every line account before opening the bill
A posted-save prompt appears Whether the bill has already posted Review the posted-save strategy before changing the bill