QuickBooks 2011: The Missing Manual

Entering Bills

At first glance, entering bills in QuickBooks and then paying them later might seem like more work than just writing a check. But as you’ll learn in this chapter, after you enter bills in QuickBooks, the program makes it incredibly easy to pay them.

To enter bills in QuickBooks, open the Enter Bills window using any of the following methods:

• On the Home page, click the Enter Bills icon (it’s in the Vendors panel).

• Choose Vendors→Enter Bills.

• In the Vendor Center icon bar, click New Transactions→Enter Bills.

The fields on a vendor’s bill are similar to the ones you see on the invoices you create. In fact, if your vendors use QuickBooks, the bills you receive are just another company’s QuickBooks invoices (see Chapter 10) or statements (see Chapter 11).

With the Enter Bills window open, here’s how to enter a bill in QuickBooks:

1. In the Vendor drop-down list, choose the vendor who billed you.

   QuickBooks automatically chooses the Bill option so that you can record a vendor bill. (You’ll learn about recording a credit from a vendor on Recording Vendor Refunds and Credits.) The program also turns on the Bill Received checkbox because you rarely enter a bill you haven’t received. Turn off this checkbox only if you receive a shipment of inventory without a bill, which you’ll learn about on Receiving Inventory Before the Bill.

   If you set up any pre-fill accounts in the vendor’s record (Filling in Expense Accounts Automatically), QuickBooks automatically adds those accounts to the table ...