Enter and pay a Bill
A Bill is money you owe a Vendor. Enter it when it arrives; record the payment when the money leaves. Lines can be charged on to a Client.
Before you start
A Bill and an Expense are not the same thing:
- A Bill is a supplier’s invoice you have received and not yet paid. Entering it is what puts it into accounts payable.
- An Expense is a cost you already paid directly, with nothing owed.
Enter the Bill when it arrives, not when you pay it. That is what makes A/P aging mean anything, and what puts the cost into the month it belongs to rather than the month the money moved.
A Bill’s lines can be charged on to a Client, exactly like an Expense’s — each line gets a Client and a retail amount, and becomes a Billable Item waiting for that Client’s next Invoice.
Steps
- Open Expenses › Bills and choose New bill.
- Choose the Vendor, the bill number, the date and the due date.
- Add a line per cost, each with its expense account. Mark any line that belongs to a Client, and set the retail if you are charging it on.
- Attach the supplier’s document.
- Save. It is now outstanding.
- When you pay it, choose Pay bills. Pick the account it left from, tick what this payment covers, and set the amount against each — a part payment is a number you type, not a separate concept.
- Press ⌘N in Bills to enter one.
- Pay from the Bill itself, or from Payments.
- Tap + in Bills.
- Attach the document from Files or the camera.
- Open More › Bills and tap +.
- To pay, open Payments, switch the direction chip to Paid, and tap +.
Good to know
A payment out can leave a credit card. That is the one asymmetry with money coming in: a card is a valid account to pay from, and never an account a payment can arrive on.
One payment can settle several Bills from the same Vendor at once. Only Vendors with something outstanding are offered, because a payment has to be against something.
Deleting a bill payment reverses its ledger entries and puts the Bills it paid back to outstanding.