A bill records a supplier cost you will pay later. It books what you owe against one or more expense or ledger accounts and raises the payable to the supplier, so a single bill both records the expense and adds to the supplier's balance. Use a bill for costs that do not arrive as goods, such as a service invoice, rent, a utility bill, a professional fee, or any expense billed to you on account. The bookkeeper, the accountant, or the owner usually enters bills.
A bill posts the moment you save it. It is the purchasing side of an invoice: where an invoice bills a customer and raises what they owe you, a bill records what you owe a supplier. A bill records amounts against accounts, not products, so it never moves stock. To take goods into stock and record their payable, receive them on a GRN instead.
A bill and a GRN are two independent ways to record a purchase, and each raises the supplier payable on its own. Never enter both for the same purchase, or you count the payable twice. Choose the document by what you are recording:
| Document | Use it when | Money |
|---|---|---|
| Bill | A non-goods supplier cost billed to you (service, utility, rent, fee). | Owed now, paid later. |
| GRN | Goods arrive and you want them in stock. | Owed now, paid later. |
| Bank Payment | A direct expense or cash purchase paid on the spot. | Paid immediately. |
| Supplier Payment | Settling bills or GRNs the supplier has already raised. | Pays down what you owe. |
Find bills under Purchase & Supplier → Bill.
Before you start
- The supplier you are billed by must exist in Suppliers. Picking the supplier pulls in its billing and delivery addresses, its default AP account, and its default payment term.
- An Accounts Payable account must exist in your Chart of Accounts. The bill credits this account, and it must be of type Accounts Payable. The supplier's default AP account prefills it.
- Each line posts to an expense or other ledger account, which must exist in the Chart of Accounts. A line cannot use an Accounts Payable or Accounts Receivable account. At least one account line is required to save.
- A payment term must exist and is required on every bill. It sets the due date from the bill date.
- To add tax to a line, a tax payable account must be configured under Tax settings, since the tax posts there.
- You need the Create Bills permission, granted per user under Permissions. List Bills lets you open the screen, and Edit, Delete, View, and Print Bills cover the rest. See Users, seats & permissions.
Record a bill
Open a new bill
Go to Purchase & Supplier → Bill and select New Bill. The bill form opens full screen.
Check the template
The Template picker sits in the toolbar at the top of the form. ZyncLedger pre-selects your default bill template, so you can usually leave it. The template decides which fields the form shows and how the printed bill looks; switch it here if you keep more than one layout. See Print templates for how these are set up.
Choose the supplier
Select the Supplier (required). ZyncLedger fills the Billing Address and Delivery Address from the supplier's record, sets the AP Account to the supplier's default, and sets the Payment Term and Due Date from the supplier's default term. The supplier's current Balance shows below the field for reference.
Confirm the AP account
Check the AP Account (required). This is the Accounts Payable account the bill credits, that is, the account that carries what you owe the supplier. It prefills from the supplier, and the list only offers accounts of type Accounts Payable.
Set the bill date
Enter the Bill Date (required). This is the date the bill posts to the ledger, so it decides which period the expense and the payable fall in.
Set the payment term and due date
Select the Payment Term (required). ZyncLedger calculates the Due Date from the term and the bill date, for example 30 days after the bill date. You can override the Due Date directly if a bill is due on a specific day. Both prefill from the supplier's default term when you pick the supplier.
Set the transaction number
The Transaction Number identifies the bill. How you fill it depends on the number mode for bills:
- Automatic (the default): the field shows Auto-generated and ZyncLedger assigns the next number when you save. Leave it alone.
- Manual: you type the number yourself. It is required and must be unique across all transactions.
See Document numbering to change the mode or set up a multi-series numbering scheme.
Add a reference and dimensions (optional)
Fill any of these if they help:
Field What it does Bill Reference Your own reference, such as the supplier's invoice number. Location Tags the bill to a location for reporting. It prefills the location on each line. Branch Tags the bill to a branch for reporting. It prefills the branch on each line. You can also edit the Billing Address and Delivery Address that prefilled from the supplier; both are optional.
Add the account lines
For each cost on the bill, fill a row in the accounts table:
Column What it does Account (required) The expense or ledger account this cost posts to. Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable accounts are not allowed here. Description The line text. Enter what the cost is for. Name An optional party to tag the line to, for your reports. It prefills with the supplier. Location / Branch Optional reporting dimensions for the line, defaulting from the header. Amount (required) The value of the line before tax. It must be greater than zero. Tax % / Tax Amount A tax to add to the line, entered either way. The line total, including any tax, is calculated for you. A blank row waits at the bottom of the table, so a new line appears as you start filling the last one. To remove a line, select the trash icon at the end of its row. The Summary on the right totals the Subtotal, Total Tax, and Final Amount as you type.
Save
Select Save & Close to save and return to the list, Save & New to save and start another bill, or Save & Print to save and print this one. The bill saves with a status of Open and posts immediately.
What it posts
A bill records a cost owed on credit, so it credits (increases) the Accounts Payable account in the header by the bill's final amount, including tax, which is what you now owe the supplier. Against that, it debits:
- Each line's account for its amount before tax. This is usually an expense account, so the cost lands on your Profit & Loss.
- Any tax on a line to your tax payable account.
The credit to Accounts Payable always equals the debited lines and their tax, so the entry balances. It flows through to the Trial Balance, the General Ledger, the Profit & Loss (for the expense lines), and the Balance Sheet (for the payable).
A bill has account lines only. It has no product or item lines, so it moves no stock and posts no cost of goods sold. If you need goods taken into stock, receive them on a GRN instead.
Saving a bill also increases the supplier's balance by the final amount, adding to what you owe them. That open balance is what a Supplier Payment later settles.
The bill is saved with a status of Open, and its status then tracks how much of it you have settled:
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Open | The bill is posted and nothing has been settled against it yet. This is the status of every new bill. |
| Partial | Part of the bill has been settled, but not all of it. |
| Closed | The bill is fully settled. |
| Deleted | The bill has been deleted (see below). It is kept for the record but its amounts are zeroed. |
A bill's status is about settlement, not the goods
The status above measures how much of the payable has been paid off, not any receiving stage. A bill starts Open and moves to Partial or Closed only as a Supplier Payment settles it, applying cash or an open Bill Credit against it. Raising a Bill Credit on its own lowers your overall balance with the supplier but does not settle a specific bill until it is applied on a Supplier Payment.
Tips & gotchas
Bill, GRN, Bank Payment, or Supplier Payment?
Use a bill for a supplier cost billed to you now and paid later that does not arrive as goods, such as a service or a utility. Use a GRN when goods physically arrive and you want them in stock. Use a Bank Payment when the money goes out immediately with no bill behind it. Use a Supplier Payment to settle bills or GRNs the supplier has already raised. A bill and a GRN each record the payable on their own, so never enter both for the same purchase.
A settled bill is locked
Once a Supplier Payment or a Bill Credit has been applied to a bill, ZyncLedger will not let you delete it, reduce its amount below what has been settled, or change the supplier or AP account. Reverse the payment or credit first.
Deleting a bill removes its postings
There is no reversing entry. Deleting a bill sets its status to Deleted, removes its lines from the ledger, and lowers the supplier's balance. ZyncLedger blocks the deletion if the bill has any payment or credit applied, if any of its lines have been reconciled on a bank reconciliation, or if its date falls in a period closed by the Ledger close date, so settled and locked history stays intact.
Related
- Suppliers are the parties you are billed by, and carry the addresses, default AP account, and default payment term the bill uses.
- Chart of Accounts holds the Accounts Payable, expense, and tax accounts a bill posts to.
- Payment terms set the due date on a bill.
- Goods Receive Note (GRN) is the separate path for goods that arrive as stock. A bill is not a follow-up to a GRN.
- Bank Payment records a direct expense paid on the spot, with no payable left owing.
- Bill Credit credits a bill for an overcharge or a returned service.
- Supplier Payment pays the supplier and settles their open bills and GRNs.
- Purchasing reports list your bills and what is still outstanding.
- Document numbering controls the bill's transaction number.
