As a continuation from our previous post How To Enter Bills In QuickBooks this second part will touch upon the basic functions of the Bill Pay window in QuickBooks. The Bill Pay window in QuickBooks allows you to select a bill and post the payment in a myriad of options to help track the credit card payments (liability) or cash payments via check or debit card (asset).
Printing Checks with QuickBooks
Printing checks via QuickBooks is a great option that will automatically enter a check with the specified check number given to QuickBooks. In the Pay Bills window select as many bills as you would like paid, QuickBooks will group multiple bills for a single vendor to one check:
- Enter the check date
- Specify the method as Check
- To Be Printed
- Select the checking account that it will be withdrawn from
- Click Pay Selected Bills in the bottom right
- Follow the prompts
Paying a Bill Outside of QuickBooks
Writing a check or using a credit card outside of QuickBooks happens when bills are paid via a credit card, a hand written check is given to a vendor, or your bill pay might be on an automatic basis with the vendor. When this is the case your job is to mimic the payment in the Pay Bills window. If a bill for AT&T is entered into QuickBooks for $100 and is later paid via your Credit Card the process would be almost the same as above:
- Select the bill in the Pay Bills window
- Enter the date of payment
- Bottom left input the payment as a Credit Card
- Select the appropriate card to pay the bill
- Click Pay Selected Bills
If a check has been manually cut already by a hand written check follow the same as you would for printing a check accept click 'Assign Check Number'.
QuickBooks Online Bill Pay
The easiest and most efficient way to pay bills and stay organized in QuickBooks. The service is almost a must have for restaurant bookkeeping due to the amount of vendors that is dealt with on a daily basis. Imagine having well over 50 vendors with multiple bills all requiring payments at least twice a month. Some folks may attempt to
print each individual check from QuickBooks, sign it, and then put a stamp on an envelope to mail it to the respective vendor.
Instead, QuickBooks Bill Pay allows you select the bills you would like to pay, select Online Bill Pay as the option, hit submit, and the instructions are then sent off to have checks printed and mailed to the vendors that were just paid. All of the information is automatically uploaded to your check register with the correct corresponding check number and amount. No printing, no stamps, no signing, just an approval with a password and a click of the mouse.
Please keep in mind though that in the Vendor Center when you right click a vendor and hit Edit Vendor, you must ensure that the correct address is inputted and that your vendor Account No is entered in the Additional Info tab. If an Account No is not provided from the vendor, input your company name in the Account No field.
How to Apply Credits
In our previous post, How to Enter Bills, we touched on how to enter credits. In the Bill Pay window select an open bill that has a credit issued from a vendor. At the bottom hit Set Credits, apply, and voile, a credit has been applied to a bill.
Paying bills via QuickBooks is an important function to having a dialed bookkeeping system that keeps your numbers accurate and automated. Yes, most vendors may have an online bill pay function but not all do. Even if all vendors had an online bill pay function imagine trying to remember the website, your password, then signing into each one of the vendors. You're now taking the same amount of time you would if you were mass printing and signing for checks, plus, using an online bill pay function doesn't even sync with QuickBooks.
