Solved

Remove unpaid bills from Pay Bills screen?

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
August 2, 2021
1 reply
0 views

We are using the Contractor Edition of QB and for it being for Contractors, it does nothing that contractors need. I've submitted requests to fix this but they've gone unanswered.

One thing that contractors do is they bill their customers and get paid, sometimes, with joint checks. There is normally a minimum 30-60 day period between billing and payment. Meanwhile, those invoices that are to be paid with the joint checks show as unpaid and payable. They are unpaid but they are definitely not payable. There should be a really obvious way to select these bills and show them unpaid but not payable since, again, this is a version specifically for contractors. We have implemented a work-around where we put "JC" in the memo but that helps zero on the Pay Bills screen since the memos are not displayed and of course can not be custom selected to be displayed. So here we are, looking at a screen of bills to pay that absolutely should not be paid.

What is QuickBooks' solution to this? Is there a tick box that needs to be enabled so that these bills can not be paid from specified accounts or so that the specific invoices won't show up on the Pay Bills screen? Ideally, ticking this box will make it so that the selected invoices can be paid but ONLY from a specified account, i.e. a JC Clearing account and not the main banking account, cc or other.

QuickBooks Desktop

Best answer by BigRedConsulting

@GalinMcMahon

Your case isn't completely clear, but I'll try to help:

RE: Meanwhile, those invoices that are to be paid with the joint checks show as unpaid and payable. They are unpaid but they are definitely not payable.

Not sure what you mean? Every unpaid bill is payable. It may not be due yet, but it's payable from QuickBooks' and an accounting point of view: You can pay any bill anytime you want.

RE: There should be a really obvious way to select these bills and show them unpaid but not payable since, again, this is a version specifically for contractors.

How is your case as a contractor any different than anyone else's? Everyone enters bills that have various due dates in the future, to be paid later. That's the basic reason Accounts Payable exists.

RE: What is QuickBooks' solution to this?

The Pay Bills window lets you filter for bills that are due before a specific date, such as this Friday or similar.

It also lets you sort the bills that appear by due date, so those with the earliest due dates appear first.

RE: Ideally, ticking this box will make it so that the selected invoices can be paid but ONLY from a specified account, i.e. a JC Clearing account and not the main banking account, cc or other.

There isn't any information recorded on a bill that could be used to do this. There is no concept like that, nothing to restrict how a bill can be paid. That's something only you know based on your understanding of your business's internal practices.

However, you can still accomplish what you want to do by using two Accounts Payable accounts. Record the bills you want to usually hide in one AP account and the other bills in the other AP account.

Then, at pay bills, select the AP account you want to pay bills from and you'll see only the bills in that AP account:

After creating the new AP account, then to complete the changes so the bills will appear separately, edit the bills you want to see separately and change the AP account at the top of the bill to the new AP account:

BigRedConsultingAnswer

@GalinMcMahon

Your case isn't completely clear, but I'll try to help:

RE: Meanwhile, those invoices that are to be paid with the joint checks show as unpaid and payable. They are unpaid but they are definitely not payable.

Not sure what you mean? Every unpaid bill is payable. It may not be due yet, but it's payable from QuickBooks' and an accounting point of view: You can pay any bill anytime you want.

RE: There should be a really obvious way to select these bills and show them unpaid but not payable since, again, this is a version specifically for contractors.

How is your case as a contractor any different than anyone else's? Everyone enters bills that have various due dates in the future, to be paid later. That's the basic reason Accounts Payable exists.

RE: What is QuickBooks' solution to this?

The Pay Bills window lets you filter for bills that are due before a specific date, such as this Friday or similar.

It also lets you sort the bills that appear by due date, so those with the earliest due dates appear first.

RE: Ideally, ticking this box will make it so that the selected invoices can be paid but ONLY from a specified account, i.e. a JC Clearing account and not the main banking account, cc or other.

There isn't any information recorded on a bill that could be used to do this. There is no concept like that, nothing to restrict how a bill can be paid. That's something only you know based on your understanding of your business's internal practices.

However, you can still accomplish what you want to do by using two Accounts Payable accounts. Record the bills you want to usually hide in one AP account and the other bills in the other AP account.

Then, at pay bills, select the AP account you want to pay bills from and you'll see only the bills in that AP account:

After creating the new AP account, then to complete the changes so the bills will appear separately, edit the bills you want to see separately and change the AP account at the top of the bill to the new AP account:

G

GalinMcMahonAuthor

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond. It's pretty impressive how quickly (or at all) QB replies to customer inquiries.

A couple things though (sorry for the wonky formatting):

In contracting (the version of QB we're using), received and entered bills are NOT necessarily payable. They have to be entered to be tracked but they can not always be paid. The reason is that in contracting, there are lien issues in place until customer payment has been received. So, for example, a vendor invoice dated 7/15 is received and entered on 7/15. There may be a due date in 30 or 60 days but that is often irrelevant in contracting. The materials or labor on that invoice would be included in the billing to the customer that is for the period 7/1 - 7/31 and (at least in our case) is dated 7/20. Our customer won't get paid from their customer for typically about 30 days after EOM, so say they get paid 8/31. Add a week for them to make sure everything is in line, cut the check and wait 1-3 weeks for the USPS to deliver it. So let's say payment is received 9/30. At THAT time, the customer's absolved of any lien by our vendor and we use those funds to pay that 7/15 invoice. If we pay that invoice before we receive payment and our customer does not pay us, we are out that money. Sometimes individual invoices are well into six figures so paying an invoice before customer payment is received can be an extremely bad thing. As such, the invoices are definitely not payable. There are many laws specific to contracting because there is so much shuffling of money and there is a historical precedence of contractors stiffing vendors. Because of that, vendors now have lien rights on the initial customer's (land / building owners') property until invoices are paid.

How is your case as a contractor any different than anyone else's? Everyone enters bills that have various due dates in the future, to be paid later. That's the basic reason Accounts Payable exists.

The answer above speaks to that. Due dates are often irrelevant in contracting, hence the special specific version of QB.

There isn't any information recorded on a bill that could be used to do this. There is no concept like that, nothing to restrict how a bill can be paid. That's something only you know based on your understanding of your business's internal practices.

That makes sense for a 1-person office. But when you have departments, there is not a shared understanding. Since QB does not allow customization on the Bill Pay screen, there is no way to let the paying person / department know not to pay. As mentioned, we add notes on the memo and description but QB's lack of customization forbids those notes from being visible here.

I think your solution may work! We only have 1 AP account so I'm thinking that's why I don't have that drop down in the Pay Bills screen. When a 2nd AP account is added, does that create a drop down in the Enter Bills screen to select which account the bill should go to?

AlexV

Hello GalinMcMahon!

Let me provide additional details about bills in QuickBooks Desktop.

You're right! An A/P Account dropdown to both the Pay Bills and Enter Bills page will appear when you add a different A/P account to your Chart of Accounts.

Also, you'll want to send feedback to our developers about the customization of the Pay Bills screen. Here's how to submit one:

From the Help menu, select Send Feedback Online, then choose Product Suggestion.
Enter the details needed.
Tap Send Feedback.

While we're unable to add the Memo on the Pay Bills screen, you can pull up the Unpaid Bills Detail report. You can use it to see the list of open bills with the memo. Follow these steps:

From the Reports menu, hover over Vendors & Payables, then select Unpaid Bills Detail.
Click the Customize Report button. From the Display tab, search and select Memo in the Columns section.
Tap OK.

Please check this link: Accounts Payable workflows in QuickBooks Desktop. This will discuss more on how to track vendor transactions in QuickBooks Desktop.

Leave a comment again here if you have additional questions. Take care!

Sign up

Login with SSO

Login to the community

Login with SSO