I am new to online quickbooks. Can I simply enter payments to suppliers or do I enter the invoice then make the payment?

Hello monklandreccentre, 

Welcome to the QuickBooks Online family. It's great to learn you're using the program to help manage your income and expenses. I'll be happy to share the info you need in order to move forward with your work. 

Since you're working with the Supplier module, the program allows you to manually enter bills and record the payments. Here's a helpful article that shows you how to do that. In case you need resources that help you with using the program, feel free to check out these tutorials/webinars. The tutorials will give you guidance on setting up the program the right way so you can achieve your accounting goals with ease. 

Feel free to keep me posted on how you make out. I'll be one message away in case you need anything else.