Bills

A Bill is a posted obligation to pay a supplier. Once posted, it appears in your AP ledger, hits the General Ledger, ages in the AP Aging report, and is reportable through Supplier Balance Summary, AP Aging, and Bill Details. Until it is posted it is a Draft and does not affect your books.

Step by step

Browse bills

1. Open AP (Purchases) ▸ Bills. Each row shows bill number, supplier, bill date, due date, total, amount due, and status (Draft / Pending Approval / Posted / Partially Paid / Paid / Void).
2. Filter by supplier, status, date range, or "open balance > 0".

Create a bill

1. Click New Bill.
2. Pick Supplier (or add a new one from the picker). Archived suppliers do not appear.
3. Enter Bill number (this is the supplier's reference, not yours), Bill date, Due date.
4. Add line items. Each line: Account or Item, Description, Quantity, Unit price, Tax.
5. Need an item that doesn't exist yet? Type its name in the item search — a Create «what you typed» option appears at the bottom. It opens a small New item window ("Create it here and it drops straight into this line."). Fill in the essentials, click Create & use, and the new item lands on the line. A link to the full item form is there if you need more fields.
6. Optionally tag lines with Dimensions.
7. To keep the supplier's paperwork with the bill, use the single receipt drop box on the form — drop the supplier's PDF or a photo of the bill there. If the form is still empty, the file is also scanned and the fields are filled in for you (see below).
8. Save as Draft or Save & Post.

Scan and prefill from a receipt or PDF

The create form has one clearly-labelled receipt drop box wired to receipt scanning. Upload a PDF or photo and the scanner extracts the supplier, date, Bill No., amount, line items, and tax. Review the suggested fields and save.

Scan vs attach — automatic based on form state. The drop box shows an info note explaining the behaviour:

• Form empty → the upload is scanned and the fields are auto-filled.
• Form has any data (supplier, bill no., reference, notes, or any line) → the upload is only attached as a file — it is not scanned, so your data is kept and no scan credit is consumed.

So it's always safe to upload — your typed data is never overwritten.

Line-item matching. When a description from the receipt matches an existing inventory item (exact, contains, or close fuzzy match — the scanner tolerates single-character misreads), the line is created as an Item line with the inventory item, account, unit and price wired in. If no match is found, the line falls back to an Account line with a default expense account so the bill is immediately saveable.

See also Expenses, which uses the same scan flow, and Documents for how attachments are stored.

Bulk create / import bills

To enter many bills at once, use Bulk Bills — open it from the caret next to New Bill. Bulk is an input shortcut only: every bill it creates is an ordinary draft bill, saved through the same rules as one typed on the normal form. There is no special record type.

Two ways to enter data:

• Manual entry — fill in one card per bill (bill date, due date, supplier, bill number, currency, item or account, description, quantity, rate, discount, tax).
• File import — download a per-document CSV or XLSX template, fill it in, and upload it. One row becomes one single-line bill. The XLSX template has drop-downs on the supplier, currency, item/account, and tax-code columns; the tax drop-down shows the code, name, and rate. Searchable reference lists (accounts, taxes, suppliers) are shown on the import tab with copy buttons.

After entering or uploading, Validate previews every bill — totals and any blocking errors are shown before anything saves. Fix the highlighted rows, then save. The batch saves in one transaction: if any bill fails, nothing is saved. Bulk-created bills are always Draft — post them from the bills list or detail page as usual.

Edit a draft

Drafts are freely editable. A posted bill locks its accounting fields — date, supplier, currency, due date, project, VAT treatment, and line items. Opening the edit page shows a locked banner explaining that the accounting content cannot be changed. To change a posted bill: Unpost it, edit the draft, then post again. Notes and attachments stay editable while posted.

Post a bill

Posting:

1. Validates the bill against accounts, taxes, and supplier currency.
2. Writes journal entries: debit Expense (or Inventory for stocked items), credit AP (and recoverable tax).
3. Locks the document.
4. Generates the PDF.

Posting is blocked when the date falls in a locked period, the bill has zero lines, the supplier is archived, or workflow approval is pending.

Unpost

Returns the bill to Draft so you can correct and re-post it. Unposting voids the bill's journal entry — the entry is kept for the audit trail but marked void and excluded from reports — and unwinds any inventory and tax effects. It does not post a separate reversal entry, so the ledger is not cluttered with reversal pairs.

Unpost is blocked if any payments or debit notes are allocated to the bill (remove the allocations first), if the period is locked, or if the bill's journal is matched in a bank reconciliation.

Void

Posts a fully reversing journal as of the void date and marks the bill as Void. Use Void when you want a permanent record that the bill should not have happened, rather than removing it. Voiding cannot be undone — the bill stays on the books as Void.

Pay a bill — including by cheque

Record payments through the Payments flow (Record a payment on the bill, or Bill Payments in the menu). On the payment form, pick the Method: Cash, Cheque, or Bank Transfer.

Paying by Cheque: choose method Cheque, then pick the Cheque Book and the Cheque No. from the book's available leaves. The cheque number is tracked against the book so it cannot be reused. See Cheques for managing cheque books.

Allocate

Apply existing unallocated bill payments or unapplied debit notes to this bill. The allocation form shows everything the supplier currently has on account.

Send by email

Mostly used to forward the bill to internal approvers or to your accountant. Only users allowed to send documents will see this action.

Print a PDF / download the attachment

Every bill can be printed as a PDF. The original uploaded supplier document can be downloaded from the bill's attachments panel.

Delete a draft

Allowed only while the bill is a Draft. Posted bills must be unposted or voided instead.

Discounts

Line discounts on a bill post to dedicated discount accounts by default, so the discount is visible in your books rather than silently netted into the expense. A setting controls whether discounts post separately (gross) or are netted into the line amount — ask your administrator if you are unsure which your organization uses. The Discounts Report (under Taxes in Reports) summarises them.

How the journal looks

A JOD 117 bill for office supplies, 17% VAT recoverable:

A JOD 117 bill for a stocked inventory item (JOD 100 cost + JOD 17 VAT):

A USD 1,000 supplier bill (base JOD, FX 0.710), 17% VAT recoverable:

The supplier-side balance is held in USD; the books carry both currency amounts. When the bill is paid, the FX rate on the payment date may differ — a realised FX gain/loss is booked at that point.

Paying the JOD 117 bill in full from the bank:

The bill flips from Posted to Paid and the open balance becomes zero.

Recurring bills

You can make a recurring template from any bill (Make Recurring) or from the Recurring Transactions page — useful for rent, subscriptions and other repeat supplier invoices.

Plan availability: recurring transactions depend on your subscription. If you don't see the option, your plan may not include it — see Subscriptions & billing, or ask your workspace owner.

See Recurring transactions.

When to use which AP document

Common mistakes

• "Post is blocked" → check: (1) the bill date is in a locked period, (2) the bill has zero lines or zero total, (3) the supplier is archived, (4) workflow approval is on and the bill is pending.
• "3-way match failure" → if 3-way matching is enabled for your organization, the bill's quantities and amounts must match the originating PO and recorded goods receipt. Open the bill side-by-side with the PO and find the variance.
• Duplicate Bill No. warning. The Bill number is the supplier's reference. Two bills from the same supplier cannot share the same number. If you got the warning, search the supplier profile first — you may have already entered it.
• Currency drift. A supplier's currency is locked once they have any posted document. Bill them in a new currency by creating a separate supplier record.
• VAT didn't reduce the net payable. Check the tax code's Recoverable flag — non-recoverable VAT is added back into the expense, not the recoverable VAT account.

Tips

• Use Bulk Bills (caret next to New Bill) to enter many bills from a CSV / XLSX template — see Bulk create / import bills above.
• Drop a PDF or photo straight onto the receipt box on the New Bill page to scan and auto-fill. If the form is empty it scans; if you've already typed something it just attaches.
• The list page supports filtering by Open balance > 0 to find unpaid bills.
• Create missing items on the fly from any line — type the name and pick Create «what you typed».

Lifecycle

Draft  ──Submit (workflow on)──▶  Pending Approval  ──Approve──▶  Approved
Draft / Approved  ──Post──▶  Posted
Posted  ──Allocate payments──▶  Partially Paid  ──more payments──▶  Paid
Posted  ──Unpost──▶  Draft  (only if no payments allocated, period unlocked)
Posted  ──Void──▶  Void

Behaviour and rules

• Posting hits the GL. Drafts do not.
• A posted bill's accounting fields are locked. The edit page shows a locked banner; Unpost it back to Draft to change them. Notes and attachments stay editable.
• Unposting voids the journal. It does not create a reversal entry — the original journal is kept (marked void) for audit and dropped from reports.
• Tax recoverability. Each line's tax is split into recoverable / non-recoverable based on the tax code.
• Multi-currency. The bill carries an exchange rate at the bill date; the AP credit posts in the supplier currency, the expense lines post in base currency.
• Locked period. Post / Unpost / Void all require the bill date's period to be open.
• Inventory. Stocked-item lines on a bill increase on-hand and post to the Inventory account; non-stocked lines hit the Expense account directly. See Inventory.
• 3-way match. If 3-way matching is enabled for your organization, posting a bill that arrived via a Purchase Order is checked against the matching PO and goods receipt before being allowed.
• Discounts post to dedicated discount accounts by default (see Discounts above).
• If an action described here is missing or greyed out, your account may not have that access — ask your workspace administrator.

Related

• Suppliers
• Expenses
• Payments
• Cheques
• Documents
• Inventory
• Settings
• Fiscal years and lock dates