How do I manage A/P Bills?

Here is where you will learn about Accounts Payable (A/P) Bills (or Invoices) and how to manage them.

Track and manage your A/P bills in ERP by going to Accounts Payable > A/P Bill Management.

This will bring you to the A/P Bill List. Here, you can search by various things: A/P Bill #, Vendor Invoice #, Vendor #, etc. Click Apply and they will appear below. There's also a column for QuickBooks Doc #, where you can visually confirm whether or not the A/P Bill has synced to QuickBooks (if you use QuickBooks).

Click one of the A/P bills to navigate to the A/P Bill Management Screen. Here you will see all the details of this A/P bill including the vendor, relevant dates, and status. You can View, Add, Edit, or Delete A/P bills.

Caution: Best practice is not to create a new A/P bill from this screen as A/P bills are generated once a Purchase Order Receive is closed.

There are four tabs below: Items, Addresses, Activity, and Custom Attributes.

Items

The Items tab will show you the P/O, P/O Receive, and the amount due.

Address

The Address tab shows the primary billing address for the vendor.

Activity

Activity will show you to the history of the A/P Bill and all related items that aren't already shown in the Items tab (e.g., you will see an A/P Bill Payment, but you will not see the P/O or P/O Receive).

Custom Attributes

Attributes will show you any attributes that were set up during your onboarding process.

There are also some options across the top of the screen: Action, Reports, and Tracking Notes.

Action

Using this dropdown you can launch QuickBooks (if you are synced to QuickBooks) to process the payment.

Reports

Using this dropdown you can print the A/P Bill. This will also download it as a PDF for you.

Tracking Notes

Enter notes using the Tracking Notes tool.

If you're making edits, make sure to click Save when you're done.

Click Yes.

Tip: You can also print an A/P Bill from the List screen by clicking Action > Print Report.

To close an A/P Bill, first make sure you are in Edit mode. Enter in a Vendor Invoice Date if there isn't on already, make sure any other relevant fields are entered, then change the status to Ready to PostClick Save. Once it's manually been updated to Ready to Post, it will automatically post. 

Click Yes.

From the A/P Bill List, once you refresh and click Apply again, you will notice the bill's status is now Posted.

If the payment doesn't post, it may mean that there was a connection issue with QuickBooks. Luckily there's an easy fix. From the A/P Bill List screen, you can manually send bills to QuickBooks. To do this, click the Action button, then click Resend to QuickBooks. Once it has been sent, a number will appear in the QuickBooks Doc # column. 

Update A/P Bills

There may be a scenario in which an A/P Bill that has already been posted needs to be updated. For example: P/O #1 arrives in two shipments - two separate P/O Receives. However, there is only a single Vendor Invoice # for both. Here is a step-by-step flow for how that would look.

  • Day 1: User creates P/O #1 with items totaling $1,000.
  • Day 2: one shipment arrives holding $500 worth of the P/O.
  • Day 2: P/O Receive #1 is processed and closed, creating A/P Bill #1.
  • Day 2: A/P Bill #1 is marked Ready to Post, which automatically posts it to QuickBooks (relevant for users who use QuickBooks for their accounting). The status is automatically updated to Posted.
  • Day 3: a second shipment arrives holding $500 worth of the P/O.
  • Day 3: P/O Receive #2 is processed and closed. Because it has the same associated Vendor and Vendor Invoice Number as P/O Receive #1, rather than creating a new A/P Bill, it will adjust the total of the A/P Bill from $500 to $1,000. This change does not automatically reflect in QuickBooks.
  • Day 3: In Edit Mode, the status of A/P Bill #1 is changed from Posted back to Ready to Post. Then it is saved and - once it posts to QuickBooks - the status will automatically change back to Posted and the total of the A/P Bill will be updated in QuickBooks.

At any time during this process, a user can create A/P Deposits directly from P/Os which will be applied to future A/P Bill Payments.


See related:

A/P Bill Payments