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Enter Bills and Pay Bills
When you use this method of recording your expenses, you have the ability to track your bills by due date and vendor, and to print reports to plan your disbursements. This is another way to use QuickBooks as a management tool. If you use this “Payables” feature, you can still enter any cash expenses or spur of the moment hand-written checks in the “Write Checks” window.
When you use the Enter Bills feature in QuickBooks, you must also use the Pay Bills feature. If you do not follow this second step, your Accounts Payable total will continue to grow and your expenses will be overstated in an accrual report. It’s not the end of the world, but you will then require some clean up work.
To enter bills into QuickBooks:
First click on the Bills icon. This will open up the “Enter Bills” window:
Enter all the detail from the bill, starting with the vendor field, and tab through or click each field.
Either start typing the vendor name, or use the down arrow to the right of the field to select the vendor from the list.
** Only names on the vendor list will appear.
Next, enter the date on the bill, and the bill due date. If you have terms set up for that vendor, the due date will automatically calculate.
Enter the amount of the bill, the terms, if not already entered, and the bill’s invoice number in the “ref. no.” field. In the memo field, just below this section, enter what you want to print on the bill payment check. This could be the bill number or account number or both.
Next, in the Expenses tab, enter the appropriate expense account. Either start typing the expense account, or use the down arrow to the right of the field to select the expense from the list. The amount will automatically be entered from the total bill amount, entered above. If this is a combination of expenses, called “Splits”, you can enter separate lines for each appropriate expense.
In the next field, you can enter a different memo that would be information for internal purposes, like reports and invoicing.
If this bill relates to a job and you want to track job information, i.e. to pass the expense along for invoicing purposes or to get job cost reports, enter the client’s name in the Customer:Job field. The invoice icon then appears.
If this is a “Pass Through” expense, one that you will then invoice the client for, leave the invoice icon active. If the expense is for reporting purposes only, make the icon inactive by clicking on it. It will then show a red X over the icon.
If you have other bills to enter, click “Save & New”. Otherwise, click “Save & Close”.
Now you are ready to pay the bill.
To pay bills in QuickBooks
First, click on the Pay Bills icon. This will open the “Pay Bills” window. This window displays a list of bills, based on the settings you select.
You will first select “Due on or before” a certain date. The default setting is 10 days from today’s date. Your other choice is to “Show all bills”.
Choose how to sort your bills. Use the setting that is shown or click the down arrow for “Vendor”, etc.
Click to the left of the bills you want to pay. Verify the “Amt. to Pay” column to the right shows the correct amount of the payment. (The bottom of this column will calculate the total amount of the payments.)
If you click more than one bill for a vendor, QuickBooks will automatically create one bill payment for the total amount.
If you need to research or correct a bill, you can find the bill by highlighting that bill and clicking “Go to Bill” below the list. If you are applying a credit or discount to a bill, highlight that bill and click “Set Discount” or “Set Credits”.
In the “Payment Account”, select the bank account you are using to pay your bills. You may have only one bank account set up. If you are paying bills with your credit card, you will need to set the “Payment Method” to Credit Card.
Choose the “To be printed” button if you are going to print these checks. If you have handwritten the checks, click the “Assign check no.” option.
“Payment Date” is the date to print or record the check. If you have several dates to record, click “Pay & New”. If you are using one date, click “Pay & Close”.
If you chose to “Assign check no.”, this window will open up next. Here you can edit the date and the check number. Then click “OK”.
If you are printing these checks, there is one more step to follow. Either way, these bill payments will now show in your check register and affect your bank balance. If they are not printed by the time you open your check register, the number field will show “To Print”.
Printing Checks
Print checks individually or in batches:
You can access a check or bill payment in two ways. First, open the check register by clicking the Checking Account icon.
Once you have located the check that you want to print, double click it to open.
Here you can click “Print” to print a single check. When you click “Print”, a window appears that asks for the check number. Enter the number of the check and click “OK”.
Next you choose the printer, check style and number of copies to print. You will probably print single copies. Load the check into your printer.
Then click “Print”. The check will then print. If it printed correctly, click “OK”. If not, enter the number of the check and follow these procedures again.
If you have several checks to print, you can choose the “Print Batch” option.
Choose the correct bank account and enter the number of the first check to print. Choose the checks to be printed by clicking to the left of each check listed or choose the “Select All” option. Click “OK”.
Next choose the printer, check style and number of copies to print. (You will probably always print single copies.) Load the checks into your printer.
Then click “Print”. The checks will then print. If all printed correctly, click “OK”. If not, enter the number of the first check that did not print correctly and follow these procedures again.
Next choose the printer, check style and number of copies to print. (You will probably always print single copies.) Load the checks into your printer.
Then click “Print”. The checks will then print. If all printed correctly, click “OK”. If not, enter the number of the first check that did not print correctly and follow these procedures again.
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