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Accounts Payable

Record and pay supplier bills

Capture a bill, approve it, pay it in full or in part, and pay several bills together in a pay run.

All Accounts Payable guides

Updated 5 October 2026

Open the Bills app. A bill moves through Draft, Approved, Partly paid and Paid. Approving and paying post to your books automatically.

Record a bill

  1. Select New bill.
  2. Choose the Supplier. Suppliers come from your contacts, and the bill keeps the supplier's name and tax ID as they were.
  3. Enter the Supplier's bill number, Bill date and Due date. Leave the due date empty if it is due on the bill date.
  4. Enter the Currency and add Lines: Description, Category, Account (optional), Qty, Unit price and Tax code. For a bill in another currency, also enter the Exchange rate to the books' currency (see below).
  5. In each line's Tax charged, enter the tax the supplier charged, or leave it empty to use the tax code's rate.
  6. Select Save draft.

Line amounts and totals are calculated exactly when you save. A draft posts nothing, and you can Edit it until it is approved.

Tax on a bill

A UK company uses the UK VAT purchase codes. A company elsewhere uses the purchase rates it set up under Setup, Tax rates: the rate in force on the bill date is applied, and a code that is not defined, or is for sales only, is refused. A rate marked as not claimable stays in the cost of the bill, and approval posts it into the expense with no input tax line.

Bills in another currency

Enter the bill's Currency and the Exchange rate to the books' currency for the bill date, as an exact decimal: how much of your books' currency one unit of the bill currency is worth. The bill then shows the rate on the bill date and the Total in your books' currency (the label ends with its currency code). Leave the rate empty for a bill in the books' currency.

Approve

Open the bill and select Approve. Books posts the expense and any input tax against Payables for that supplier. Approval follows your workspace's approval policy: the person who created or last edited a bill can never approve it, and owners and admins can approve unless a policy names other roles. If the period is closed or a role has no account, the bill stays a draft and tells you why.

Pay

  1. Open an approved bill and select Pay.
  2. Enter the Payment date and an optional Reference. Leave Amount empty to pay what is Still owed, or enter a smaller amount for a partial payment. For a foreign-currency bill the amount is in the bill currency, and you also enter the rate to the books' currency for the payment date (the field is labelled with the bill currency). Books pays at that rate and records the realised exchange gain or loss against the rate the bill was booked at.
  3. Select Record payment.

Each payment posts its own journal, and the bill's Payments list shows every one. Select Reverse on a payment to reverse its posting; the amount is then owed again. Overpayments, payments dated before the bill or in the future are refused.

Pay several bills together

Open the Pay run tab, set Due by, tick the bills you want, change the Amount to pay if you are paying part of a bill, enter the Payment-date rate for any foreign-currency bill, and select Pay selected bills. Each bill is paid on its own, so one refusal does not stop the rest, and the result shows how many were paid and how many were not.

Void a bill

A bill with nothing paid can be voided with a reason. Its postings are reversed and it drops out of aged payables.

Capturing, paying and voiding are for owners and admins.