If you’re just writing one-off checks to bill-paying tools, you’re missing out on many benefits.

QuickBooks’ Calendar and Reminders help you manage your vendor bills and expenses. But if you use the program’s built-in bill-paying tools to record and pay bills, tracking them will be much more effective. You can:

• Avoid paying a bill twice
• Be constantly aware of your financial obligations
• Run a report to see debts and due dates, so you can better forecast cash flow.

Recording Each Bill with bill-paying tools

If you’re purchasing items that will be used for a specific customer and job, click Enter Bills on the home page, or in the Vendor Center. This window opens:

You can either enter a bill’s information manually or pull in purchase order details.

If there’s a matching purchase order, QuickBooks can transfer its information. If not, enter the items on the bill. Check the Billable column and assign it to the correct customer/job so that these items can be easily invoiced.

If you have related expenses (like utility bills), click on the Expenses tab to enter those charges. Then save the bill. You can see it in reports and the Vendor Center.

Processing Payments

To pay a bill, click Pay Bills from the home page or Vendor Center. In the window that opens, find the bill(s) you want to pay by specifying a due date and/or selecting a vendor. You can sort the list by Discount Date, Due Date, and Amount Due.

You can specify options at the bottom of the bill-paying tools screen.

Highlight a vendor and bill to view options. If a discount or credit is available, you can claim it here. Make sure that the payment date and account are correct and specify a payment method.

There are many ways you might pay vendors, so it gets a bit tricky here. Checks are easy; select that option and indicate whether you’re writing a check manually or you want QuickBooks to print one. If you remit funds by, for example, PayPal, EFT, debit card, or online vendor payment, we can help you document the payments.

Click Pay Selected Bills and do any necessary follow-up.

Some Complicated Tasks

It’s inevitable: Everyone occasionally makes mistakes and needs to edit, void, or delete bills. Let us walk you through these steps and answer any other bill-paying tools questions you have.

This method takes a little extra work, but the payoff is an improved ability to track bills and payments and make more accurate cash flow projections.