QuickBooks 2005: The Missing Manual

Chapter 10. Paying for Expenses

Most small business owners sift through the daily mail looking for the envelopes that contain checks. After that, it's time to read all your industry rags and Web sites. And after that, there's nothing to do but open the bills.

When you use QuickBooks, paying bills is a multi-step process. If you want your financial records to be right, you have to tell the program about the expenses you've incurred. And, if you want your vendors to leave you alone, you have to pay their bills.

Handling expenses can take several forms, just like charging customers for products and services can. QuickBooks accepts this challenge and, aside from a few idiosyncrasies that drive accountants wild, succeeds. This chapter explains the choices you have for paying bills (now or later) and describes how to record your bills and payments either way. If you pay bills right away, you'll find out how to write checks, use a credit card, or pay with cash in QuickBooks. If you enter bills in QuickBooks for payment later, you'll learn how to handle the easy ones, such as rent, as well as reimbursable expenses and inventory.

QuickBooks is happy to help you through every step of the process: recording bills you receive, setting up bill payments, and even printing the checks you mail to your vendors. But for modest enterprises with few expenses, writing checks by hand and recording them in the program works just as well.

When to Pay Expenses

When it comes to paying for expenses, you have three ...