Bills

A bill records an amount you owe a supplier for goods or services you received on credit. Once posted, it credits Accounts Payable, debits the expense, inventory and VAT accounts on its lines, shows on the supplier's balance, and ages in the AP Aging reports until you pay it. A draft bill has no accounting effect.

Use a bill when you will pay the supplier later (or pay part now and part later). If you paid on the spot and never owed anything, an expense is usually simpler.

Where to find it

• Sidebar: Purchases → AP (Purchases) panel → Documents → Bills (URL /ap/bills). The menu item shows a counter of overdue bills.
• Quick create: the + quick-add menu → Purchases → New Bill (URL /ap/bills/create).
• Bulk entry: Bulk Bills button on the bill form, or the caret next to New Bill on the list (URL /ap/bills/bulk).
• Overview: Purchases Overview shows what you owe today (see Purchases Overview).
• If you use SolaStock for inventory, two extra buttons sit at the top of the list: Purchase receipts needing attention and Cancelled receiving requests. See Receiving goods on supplier bills.

The bills list

The list shows one row per bill. The columns below are the ones you can show; a saved view chooses which are visible. Eight are on by default: Number, Supplier ref., Date, Due Date, Supplier, Total, Balance and Status.

Filters along the top (one row): the search box (bill number, supplier, references, line descriptions), a supplier picker, All statuses (Draft, Awaiting classification, Unpaid, Partially Paid, Overdue, Paid, Void), Any due date (Overdue, Due in 7 days, Due in 30 days), a from and a to date, and any custom fields you set up for bills. Click Filter to apply; the clear button resets everything. You can save the current filters and columns as a named view and export to Excel; the Excel file has the same columns, order and language as the list, and amounts stay numeric.

Bulk actions on the list

Tick rows (or Select visible records) to open the bulk bar:

• Post to GL — posts all selected bills. Every selected bill must be an unposted draft; otherwise nothing is posted and you see "Every selected bill must be an unposted draft. Nothing was posted." Up to 100 bills at a time.
• Delete drafts — deletes the selected drafts. Posted bills are skipped ("Posted documents cannot be deleted."), and drafts waiting on an approval are skipped too.
• Export, Print, Download PDFs.

The bulk bar shows a confirmation with the eligible and skipped records before anything runs, then a summary of processed, skipped and failed records.

Create a bill

1. Click New Bill (top right of the list).
2. Fill in the header:

3. Optional switches under the header:
   • Enter total now, classify lines later — see Bill classification.
   • Expense payment — creates and pays the bill in one step, see Pay at the same time.
   • Reverse Charge — shown only when VAT is enabled for your organization; see Reverse-charge VAT.
4. In Line Items, add one line per item or charge (Add line adds a row). Columns: Type (Item or Account), Item / Description, account, Qty, Unit, Price, Disc., Tax, Amount.
   • Item lines: pick a product or service. The item's own purchase or inventory account is used automatically (shown as "Auto"). Need a new item? Type its name and choose the create option at the bottom of the search; the New item window adds it straight into the line. If the item is a stock item owned by SolaStock, the bill follows the receiving workflow instead: posting debits Billed Goods Awaiting Receipt, and a panel guides you through receiving. See Receiving goods on supplier bills.
   • Account lines: pick an account and type a description. The default comes from your organization's purchases account setting. The account list offers active, postable expense accounts (not the cost-of-goods 500x accounts) and, for acquisition costs, the organization's clearing accounts: the Asset Clearing account from Account Defaults and, in a SolaStock-connected organization, the verified Landed Cost Clearing account ("Code supplier freight, duty and insurance bills to this account. SolaStock landed costs credit it when they revalue received stock, so it nets to zero once both are posted."). Use them for a freight, customs or equipment-in-transit bill that you will capitalize later; the line debits the clearing account instead of an expense (see the example below). Inventory control accounts (including SolaStock's inventory account) and VAT accounts are not offered.
   • If VAT is turned off for the organization, new lines cannot add VAT: "VAT is disabled for this organization. New bill lines cannot add VAT." (tax choices already on an old draft stay visible for review). The owner can turn VAT on in the VAT and organization tax settings card of Settings → General Settings; once transactions are posted it is locked ("VAT enablement is locked after posted transactions.").
   • Use the tax mode control above the lines to switch prices between tax Exclusive and Inclusive.
   • Optionally tag lines with dimensions and fill any bill custom fields.
5. Optionally attach the supplier's document in the Bill Document box on the right (see Capture a bill with OCR).
6. Check the totals at the bottom, then click one of the buttons at the bottom of the form:
   • Save Draft — saves without accounting effect.
   • Save & Post — saves and posts to the general ledger in one go. If posting fails (for example the date is in a closed period), the bill is still saved as a draft and you see why posting was refused.

After saving you land on the bill's page with a confirmation notice ("Bill created." or "Bill created and posted to GL.").

A bill with no value is refused: "This bill has no value — the line amounts did not reach the server. Re-enter the amounts and save again." If no line has an item or an account you see "Please add at least one line with an item or an expense account."

Capture a bill with OCR

The Bill Document box on the right of the form holds the supplier's PDF or image (JPEG, PNG, WebP, BMP, TIFF or PDF, up to 10 MB).

• Upload File — attaches the file only.
• Scan with OCR — uploads the file and reads it. When reading finishes ("Receipt scanned successfully") the box shows the detected invoice number, date and total. Click Apply OCR to Draft to fill the form: the supplier (only when its name matches an existing supplier exactly), bill date, due date, currency, and one line per detected line item with description, quantity and price. Detected lines are account lines; check the account and tax on each.
• Extract with OCR — reads a file you already attached with Upload File.
• Scan — appears only if a paired document scanner is set up for your organization; it scans paper straight into the box.

Rules worth knowing:

• Always review before saving. The box warns: "Amounts may differ: line prices are extracted as totals, not unit prices. Tax is shown as a number, not a tax code. Please verify before saving."
• OCR is a plan feature with a monthly scan allowance. When scanning is not in your plan you see "OCR scanning is not available on your current plan. You can still attach and preview files." When the allowance is used up: "Your OCR scan limit is used up for this month. You can still attach and preview files."
• The attached file stays with the bill as its primary document. On a saved bill you can Preview, Download, replace (Re-scan) or Remove it.
• Applying OCR to a draft that already has lines replaces them. It is refused when that would delete a line that came from a SolaStock goods receipt, because those lines cannot be removed from a bill.
• The upload, scan and OCR controls, the progress messages and the warning box are styled for dark mode as well as light mode; there is no functional difference.

Pay at the same time (Expense payment)

Tick Expense payment when you have already paid the supplier. A blue panel opens:

On save, the bill is posted first and a supplier payment for the full total is created and allocated to it ("Bill and payment created."). If the bill cannot be posted, nothing is paid: "To record an expense payment, the bill must be posted successfully."

Bill classification (enter total now, classify lines later)

Sometimes you have the supplier's total but not the breakdown yet. Tick Enter total now, classify lines later on the form. The Amount Only (Unallocated) panel appears:

Post the bill as usual. The full amount sits in Unallocated Expenses and the list shows Awaiting classification. Later:

1. Open the bill and click Classify bill amount.
2. Enter the Date and an optional description.
3. Add one row per expense account: Expense Account, description, Qty, Unit, Price. Use Add line for more rows.
4. The footer shows Total to classify, Entered total and Remaining. The button stays disabled until the entered total equals the bill total exactly.
5. Click Review classification, check the summary, then Confirm classification.

SolaCount posts a classification journal (Dr each expense account, Cr Unallocated Expenses) and shows "Bill amount classified successfully." with a View classification journal link on the bill. Classification does not change what you owe the supplier or make any payment.

Limits:

• The bill must be posted first ("Post this bill first.").
• Only active, postable expense or cost accounts; not control accounts and not Unallocated Expenses itself.
• No inventory items ("classification does not receive stock"), no tax ("Tax must be recorded on the original bill."), no project or dimensions.
• Needs the purchases.bills.allocate permission and any required approval.
• After classification the bill cannot be unposted or voided: "This bill cannot be unposted after its amount has been classified. Use the supported bill correction workflow or contact an accountant."

Convert a purchase order into a bill

On a purchase order, click Create bill from order and confirm "Create a supplier bill for the remaining ordered quantity?". SolaCount creates a draft bill dated today with the PO number as its reference, one line per PO line that still has quantity left to bill (ordered minus already billed), at the PO prices, taxes, accounts and project. Review it, add the supplier's bill number, and post. See Purchase orders.

Post a bill

On a draft bill, click Post to GL and confirm "Post this bill? A journal entry will be created and the supplier balance will be updated."

Posting checks that:

• the bill date falls in an open accounting period ("No open accounting period for the bill date."),
• the total is above zero,
• an AP control account is set ("Cannot post: AP control account not configured."),
• every line resolves to an expense account (an inventory account for SolaCount-only stock items, Billed Goods Awaiting Receipt for SolaStock-owned stock items, or, on account-only lines, the organization's Asset Clearing or Landed Cost Clearing account),
• every taxed line has the matching VAT account set up ("Input VAT account not configured for this tax code."),
• any required approval is complete ("This document must have a current approval before posting.").

The bill then becomes Unpaid (or Overdue once the due date passes), and the attached document, PDF and journal history are available on its page.

What the bill page offers

Buttons at the top of the bill depend on its status and your permissions:

The summary panel shows Paid, Credits applied (debit notes and supplier credits) and Balance Due. The page also has email sending with history, comments, attachments and the relationship map (which offers Pay Bill and Create Debit Note shortcuts).

Unpost and Void are refused while:

• "Payments are allocated to this bill — remove allocations first" (reverse the supplier payment first),
• "Debit notes are applied — remove allocations first" (unapply them on the debit note),
• the period is closed or locked ("Accounting period '…' is closed/locked"),
• "Journal entry is matched in bank reconciliation".

To change a posted bill, Unpost it, edit the draft, and post again. Opening bills created during data migration are corrected through the opening-balance correction flow instead.

Two more protections apply when the bill has SolaStock stock lines:

• A bill that changed since you opened it (for example a SolaStock receipt added lines) cannot be saved over: "This bill changed since you opened it… Nothing was saved. Reload the bill and apply your changes again."
• A bill with matched receipts is unposted or voided only after its receiving request is cancelled and the matching journals are reversed, and not while the SolaStock connection is inactive. See Receiving goods on supplier bills.

Reverse-charge VAT on imports

Use reverse charge when you buy from a supplier outside the UAE (for example software subscriptions or services from abroad). You account for the VAT yourself: SolaCount records both the input and the output VAT, and the supplier is owed only the net amount.

How to use it:

1. If the supplier record is flagged for reverse charge (the flag can be set through supplier bulk upload; the supplier form's Import / Overseas supplier setting marks the supplier as overseas), picking that supplier on a bill switches Reverse Charge on automatically and changes each line's tax to the reverse-charge rate with the same percentage.
2. Otherwise tick Reverse Charge on the bill yourself. The Tax picker then lists only reverse-charge rates; turning it off swaps lines back to standard rates.
3. Your organization must have reverse-charge VAT accounts set up: "Both RC Input and RC Output VAT accounts must be configured for Reverse Charge." See Taxes & VAT.

What changes:

• The supplier payable excludes the VAT. The bill Total, the AP balance, the supplier statement and aging all show the net amount. The self-assessed VAT is shown separately and never added to what you pay.
• Output VAT (RC Output) is always credited for the self-assessed amount.
• Input VAT (RC Input) is debited only when the tax rate is recoverable. If the rate is set as not recoverable, the VAT is added to the cost of the expense or inventory line instead, and the supplier payable is still the net amount.
• Both sides feed the VAT return as reverse-charge amounts.

Worked example — services imported from abroad

Al Noor Trading LLC buys a consulting service from a UK firm for AED 10,000. Reverse charge at 5%, recoverable.

The supplier is owed AED 10,000. The two VAT lines cancel each other on the VAT return. If the 5% rate were not recoverable, the expense would be AED 10,500, there would be no RC Input line, and AP would still be AED 10,000.

Worked example — standard local bill

Al Noor Trading LLC receives a bill from Gulf Office Supplies LLC: 40 boxes of paper at AED 50 each, 5% VAT, due in 30 days.

Posting creates:

If the tax rate were non-recoverable, the expense would be AED 2,100 and there would be no Input VAT line. For a stock item, the debit goes to the item's inventory account instead of an expense account (with non-recoverable VAT added to the inventory cost). When you later pay AED 2,100 from your bank: Dr Accounts Payable 2,100 / Cr Bank 2,100, and the bill becomes Paid.

Bill entered as a total only (AED 2,100 on Enter total now, classify lines later): posting debits Unallocated Expenses 2,100 and credits AP 2,100. Classifying it as Office supplies 1,500 and Printing 600 then posts Dr Office supplies 1,500, Dr Printing 600, Cr Unallocated Expenses 2,100.

Worked example — freight bill coded to a clearing account

Al Noor Trading LLC receives a customs-clearing bill from Dubai Freight Services LLC for AED 800 + 5% VAT, for goods whose cost will be spread over the stock later. In the bill's Account line it picks Landed Cost Clearing (SolaStock-connected organization) instead of an expense account:

When the landed cost is posted in SolaStock, it credits Landed Cost Clearing by AED 800.00 and adds the cost to the received items' inventory value, so the clearing account returns to zero. If the clearing account is still not zero after both are posted, the landed cost has not been posted yet or the amounts differ. Without SolaStock use the Asset Clearing account the same way for a fixed-asset purchase, then register the asset with acquisition mode Asset Clearing (Fixed assets).

Supplier advances and credits

• If you paid the supplier in advance, the money sits as a Supplier Advance (sidebar Payments panel → Supplier Advances). Apply it to a posted bill from the advance with Apply Advance; this posts Dr Accounts Payable / Cr Supplier Advances and reduces the bill's balance like a payment. Advances only apply to bills in the same currency, and not above the bill balance. See Payments.
• A debit note applied to the bill reduces its balance and shows under Credits applied.

Effect on AP aging

The AP Aging Summary and Detail reports include every posted (not draft, not void) bill with a remaining balance on the as-of date: total, minus posted payment allocations (including applied advances) made by that date, minus debit notes applied by that date. Posted expenses that are still unpaid are listed alongside bills. Age is counted from the due date into Current, 1–30, 31–60, 61–90 and 91+ days. Drafts and void bills never appear. The sidebar overdue counter, the Overdue filter and the Overdue tile on Purchases Overview use the same rule. Reverse-charge VAT is not part of the balance. Under the aging reports a Gross-to-net reconciliation ties the aged total to the Accounts Payable account; see Payables reports.

Bulk Bills

Use Bulk Bills to enter many single-line bills at once. Each one is saved as an ordinary draft bill, through the same rules as the normal form.

1. Open Bulk Bills (caret next to New Bill, or the button on the bill form).
2. Either fill one card per bill manually, or download the CSV or XLSX template and upload it. One row is one bill with one line.
3. Template columns: bill_date, due_date, supplier, bill_number, currency, item_or_account, line_description, quantity, rate, discount, tax_code, tax_inclusive, line_discount_type, document_discount_type, document_discount_value. The XLSX template has drop-downs for suppliers, currencies, items/accounts and tax codes (shown as code · name · rate).
4. Supplier, item/account and tax code must exactly match records that already exist; create them first if missing. A real bill_number must be unique for its supplier; blank, "No Bill Number" and "لا يوجد" mean no number.
5. Preview validates every row and shows totals and errors. Fix the flagged rows, then save. The batch is all-or-nothing: if any bill fails, nothing is saved.
6. Post the new drafts from the list (Post to GL in the bulk bar) or one by one.

Permissions and limits

• Bills are part of the Bills feature of your plan. Multi-currency, dimensions, the SolaProjects link and OCR show only when your plan includes them; otherwise they appear as locked capabilities on the form.
• The default Purchasing role can view, create, edit drafts, email and download bills, but cannot post, unpost, void, delete or pay them.
• If your organization uses approvals for bills, posting, unposting, voiding and deleting may wait for an approver. You cannot approve your own document.
• All buttons use the shared confirmation dialogs and outcome notices. If the network drops while saving or posting, SolaCount checks what happened instead of submitting again, so you do not get duplicates.

Tips and common problems

• "No open accounting period for the bill date." — open or create the period, or change the date. See Fiscal years & lock dates.
• Reverse charge does not appear — VAT is not enabled for the organization; turn it on in Taxes & VAT.
• Can't unpost — remove payment allocations and unapply debit notes first.
• Duplicate bill number error — the same supplier already has a bill with that number. Use the supplier's exact reference, or tick the no-number box.
• For repeating bills (rent, subscriptions) use Recurring Bills — see Recurring.

Related

• Receiving goods on supplier bills
• Financial supplier credits
• Purchases Overview
• Payables reports
• Purchase orders
• Expenses
• Debit notes
• Landed costs
• Payments
• Suppliers
• Taxes & VAT
• Reports
• Workflow approvals