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Bills: Paying bills and using credits

After entering your bills, you can then pay the bills when you want.

Note: If you haven't entered your bills, you can pay your vendor by writing checks, paying by credit card, and using cash expenditures directly from the account register. However, if you enter bills using either the Enter Bills window or the Accounts Payable register, you must use the Pay Bills.

Pay the bills that you've entered

To pay your entered bills, choose Vendors > Pay Bills use the Pay Bills window.

  1. Show the bills you want to pay. Choose “All bills” to see every bill you've entered, or enter a due date to see all bills due on or before that date. If you don't see a bill you want to pay, you probably need to change the date here.
  2. Choose a payment type. You record a bill as paid by Check or Credit Card. If you choose Check, choose one of these options:
    • If you're printing the checks through QuickBooks, select “To be printed.” After you exit the Pay Bills window, you can then choose File > Print Forms > Checks to print your checks.
    • If you're writing checks by hand, select “Assign check numbers.” When you exit the Pay Bills window, you'll be able to enter the check numbers you used.
  3. Select the bills you want to pay with the payment type. In the imagecolumn, click the bills you want to pay. To select all the bills, click Select All Bills. To clear your selections, click Clear Selections.

    Note: To pay only part of a particular bill, edit the amount shown in the Amt Paid column.

  4. Choose the account you're paying the bill from. By default, your bills are paid from the first account listed in the Chart of Accounts. You can reorder the Chart of Accounts so that a different account is listed first.
  5. If you have more bills to pay, click Next. If you're done with selecting your bills to pay, click OK.

    Note: You might click Next if you want to use different payment dates for your bills, or you want to pay them from different checking accounts. Also, click Next if you want to create multiple checks for the same vendor.

Chart of Accounts

A complete list of a business's accounts. The accounts that appear on the balance sheet are called “balance sheet accounts.” Other accounts track particular kinds of expenses or income.

Apply a discount to a bill
  1. In the Pay Bills window, click the bill to which you want to apply a discount.
  2. Click Discount Info.
  3. (Optional) Change the amount of the discount. Quickbooks calculates a suggested discount amount based on your payment terms with the vendor and the payment date.
  4. (Required)Enter the name of the account you use to track income from discounts.
Assign check numbers

When paying bills, you have a choice for how you want to assign check numbers for tracking purposes. You may not even be paying by check, so you can choose to assign check numbers yourself and enter “ATM” or a reference number if you paid the bill online.

  • Let QuickBooks assign check number. QuickBooks assigns the check number, starting with the number after the last check number used.
  • Let me assign the check numbers below. Click the box in the Check No. column and enter the check number or other information that you are using to track the payment.

Things to know