The Vendors & Payables reports answer one question from several angles: what does the business owe its vendors, to whom, since when, and when must it be paid? Use them before a payment run, at month-end to prove the Accounts Payable balance, and whenever a vendor says their statement does not match yours.
The reports read the same list of open vendor documents, so their totals agree with each other. The summary reports also check themselves against the Accounts Payable account in your books and tell you, in a note under the report, whether the two agree.
Where to find them
- Reports ▸ Vendors & Payables lists them under their QuickBooks names: A/P Aging Summary, A/P Aging Detail, Vendor Balance Summary, Vendor Balance Detail, Unpaid Bills Detail, Bills and Applied Payments, Bills to Pay by Due Date and Transaction List by Vendor. The same submenu also carries Sales Tax Liability, which is explained with the Sales Tax reports.
- Reports ▸ Report Centre, category Vendors & Payables.
- Vendors ▸ Vendor Centre ▸ Reports (the Reports button on the Vendor Centre) opens Vendor Balance Summary, Vendor Balance Detail, A/P Aging Summary, A/P Aging Detail, Unpaid Bills Detail and Transaction List by Vendor.
What counts as money you owe
Every report in this group starts from the same rules:
- Bills count once the goods or services have been received. A purchase order that has not been received is not a bill and is not owed; it is on the Open Purchase Orders reports in Purchases reports instead.
- Unpaid expenses count. An expense entered and not yet paid is money owed, whether or not it came in as a bill.
- Vendor credits count as negative amounts: goods you sent back reduce what you owe. They are labelled Debit Note in these reports.
- Opening balances brought forward for a vendor count.
- General Journal lines posted to Accounts Payable that name a vendor count, labelled General Journal.
- Payments are taken off each document up to the report date. A refund received from a vendor is subtracted from the payments, not added.
Due dates come from the terms on the document. When a bill carries no terms, the vendor's default terms from the vendor record are used. When neither has terms, the bill is due on the day it is dated. Terms in months are calendar months: Net 3 months on 31 January is due 30 April.
Aging buckets are measured in days past the due date: Current (not yet due), 1 – 30, 31 – 60, 61 – 90 and > 90.
Filters these reports offer
| Control | Reports | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| As of date | A/P Aging Summary, A/P Aging Detail, Bills to Pay by Due Date, Unpaid Bills Detail, Vendor Balance Summary | Shows what was open at the end of that day. Payments made after it are ignored. |
| Period (from and to) | Vendor Balance Detail, Transaction List by Vendor, Bills and Applied Payments | The documents and payments dated in the period. |
| All vendors chip | A/P Aging Summary, A/P Aging Detail, Bills to Pay by Due Date, Unpaid Bills Detail, Vendor Balance Summary, Vendor Balance Detail, Transaction List by Vendor | Click it and pick one vendor to narrow the report to them. The report heading then names the vendor, and a printed copy carries their address. Click the × on the chip to go back to all vendors. |
None of these reports filters by location: Accounts Payable belongs to the company, not to one store. For how dates, the period picker and the report toolbar work, see Running a report.
A/P Aging
A/P Aging Summary
What it answers: how much you owe each vendor, and how late it is.
Date: as of one day. Filters: one vendor.
Columns: Vendor, then one column per aging bucket (Current, 1 – 30, 31 – 60, 61 – 90, > 90) and Total.
Rows: one line per vendor, largest total first. Documents with no vendor on them are grouped under No supplier. A TOTAL row sums every column.
Notes under the report: when your Accounts Payable account is set in Accounting Setup, the report compares its total with that account's balance on the same date. It either says Agrees with the Accounts Payable control account in the ledger, or gives both figures and the difference.
Drill down: click a vendor's line to open A/P Aging Detail for that vendor, as of the same date.
Related: its total equals the Vendor Balance Summary and Bills to Pay by Due Date totals on the same date.
A/P Aging Detail
What it answers: which open documents make up the aging, and how late each one is.
Date: as of one day. Filters: one vendor.
Columns:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Date | The document's date. |
| Ref | The document's reference (the vendor's invoice number, or the number SeroBooks gave it). |
| Vendor | The vendor. |
| Terms | The terms used for the due date, for example 30 days, 2 months or On receipt. |
| Due date | When it falls due. |
| Days late | Days past the due date on the report date; blank when not yet due. |
| Amount | The document's full amount. Vendor credits are negative. |
| Open balance | What is still unpaid on the report date. |
Rows: one section per aging bucket, oldest documents first within each. Each section ends with a subtotal (Total Current, Total 1 – 30 and so on), and a TOTAL row closes the report.
Drill down: click any line to open the bill, expense or vendor credit itself.
Bills to Pay by Due Date
What it answers: what you have to pay, in the order you have to pay it: overdue first, then today, this week, this month and later.
Date: as of one day (usually today). The date can be in the future, to see what will be overdue by then. Filters: one vendor.
Columns:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Due date | When the document falls due (its own date, if it has no terms). |
| When | Plain words: 12 days late, today, in 5 days. |
| Vendor | The vendor. Click the name to open that vendor's ledger. |
| Num | The document's reference. |
| Dated | The document's own date. |
| Terms | The terms used for the due date. |
| Amount | The document's full amount. |
| Still owed | What remains unpaid. |
Rows: sections in this order, each listing the soonest due first and closing with a subtotal that also counts the documents:
- Overdue
- Due today
- Due in the next 7 days
- Due in 8 to 30 days
- Due later
- Credits not yet applied: vendor credits you have not yet used against a bill. They are listed on their own rather than netted into a week, so you can see them and apply them when you pay.
A TOTAL row closes the report. The notes explain where the due dates came from, confirm that unpaid expenses are included, and compare the total with the Accounts Payable account.
Drill down: click a line to open the document; click the vendor's name to open their ledger.
Related: the same documents as the A/P Aging reports, arranged by due date instead of by age. Its total agrees with A/P Aging Summary on the same date.
Unpaid Bills Detail
What it answers: every document you still owe money on, vendor by vendor.
Date: as of one day. Filters: one vendor.
Columns: Date, Ref, Due date, Days late, Amount and Open balance.
Rows: one section per vendor, in alphabetical order, with that vendor's documents oldest first and a Total line for the vendor. A TOTAL row closes the report.
Only documents with money still owed appear. Vendor credits waiting to be applied are not listed here; they are on A/P Aging Detail and in the Credits not yet applied section of Bills to Pay by Due Date.
Drill down: click a line to open the bill or expense.
Vendor Balance
Vendor Balance Summary
What it answers: one balance per vendor. The quickest answer to "what do we owe each vendor?"
Date: as of one day. Filters: one vendor.
Columns: Vendor, Open documents (how many bills, expenses and credits are open) and Balance.
Rows: one per vendor, largest balance first, then a TOTAL row. The note compares the total with the Accounts Payable account in your books.
Drill down: click a vendor to open Vendor Balance Detail narrowed to that vendor. Set the period you want on the detail report.
Related: the same total as A/P Aging Summary, without the aging columns.
Vendor Balance Detail
What it answers: everything that moved a vendor's balance during a period, with a running balance. In effect, the vendor's statement.
Date: a period. Filters: one vendor.
Columns: Date, Type (Bill, Debit Note, General Journal, Payment or Refund), Num (the document number, or the payment's reference or method), Amount and Balance (running).
Rows: one section per vendor. Within it, bills, vendor credits and every payment made in the period are interleaved by date. A payment made this month against last month's bill appears this month, because that is when the money moved. Applying a vendor credit to a bill is not listed as a payment, since both documents are already on the report. Each vendor ends with a Total line, and a TOTAL row closes the report.
Drill down: click any line to open the bill, the credit, or the bill a payment was made against.
Transaction List by Vendor
What it answers: every document you recorded with each vendor in a period.
Date: a period. Filters: one vendor.
Columns:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Date | The document's date. |
| Type | Bill, Debit Note, Expense or General Journal. |
| Num | The document's number or reference. |
| Location | The store or warehouse it was recorded at. |
| Status | Its payment status, for example Paid, Partial or Due. |
| Amount | The document's total. Vendor credits are negative. |
Rows: one section per vendor, in date order, with a Total per vendor and a TOTAL row. Purchase orders not yet received are left out, because nothing has been bought yet.
Drill down: click a line to open the document.
Bills
Bills and Applied Payments
What it answers: for each bill dated in the period, how it was paid: every payment and every vendor credit applied to it, and what is left open.
Date: a period (the bill's date).
Columns:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Type | Bill on the bill's own line; Bill Payment or Credit applied on the lines beneath it. |
| Date | The bill date, or the date of the payment. |
| Num | The bill's reference, or the cheque number or payment reference. |
| Paid by | The payment method, for example Cheque or Bank Transfer. |
| Amount | The bill's total on the bill line; each payment as a negative amount beneath it. |
| Open Balance | On each bill's Total line: what is still unpaid. |
Rows: one section per vendor. Under it, each bill, then its payments and credits indented beneath, then a Total line for the bill with the open balance.
Cheques written with Write Cheques and charges entered with Enter Credit Card Charges are paid as they are written, so they are not listed.
Drill down: click a bill or any of its payment lines to open the bill.
Common problems
The A/P Aging total does not match the Accounts Payable balance on the Balance Sheet. Read the note under the report: it gives both figures. The usual causes are an amount written straight to the Accounts Payable account in a General Journal Entry without naming a vendor, or a bill that was never posted to the books. Run Control Account Reconciliation and Documents Not in the Books (see Accountant & Taxes reports).
A bill I paid still shows as open. The payment was probably recorded without being applied to the bill. Open the bill from the report and check its payments, or pay it through Pay Bills.
A purchase order shows nothing here. That is correct: a purchase order is not owed until the goods are received. Receive the items (see Receive Items) or enter the bill.
A vendor's balance on Vendor Balance Detail looks wrong. The detail report starts at zero on the first day of the period. Compare the vendor's balance on Vendor Balance Summary instead, or widen the period back to the vendor's first transaction.
The report says it is incomplete. Detail reports stop at 5,000 lines and say so above the figures. Narrow the date range and run it again.