What is Accounts Payable?
The record of the outstanding bills of a business. It is the money you owe your vendors for goods or services that you purchased on credit. Accounts Payable is called A/P for short. (Even though the word "accounts" is plural, QuickBooks uses a single account on the Chart of Accounts to track all outstanding bills.)
What is QuickBooks Accounts Payable account?
An account that QuickBooks automatically adds to your Chart of Accounts the first time you enter a bill. QuickBooks uses this account to track the money that you owe. When you enter or pay a bill for a vendor, QuickBooks records the transaction in your Accounts Payable account.
Your Chart of Accounts lists the type of this account as "Accounts Payable." If you need to use more than one of this type of account in your business, you can add additional "accounts payable" accounts to the chart. When you have more than one accounts payable account, QuickBooks lets you choose the account you want to use when you enter or pay a bill.
Accounts Payable Workflows
There are 2 usual A/P workflows available in QuickBooks Desktop. To record your A/P transactions, choose one workflow that suits your business process and follow the steps in creating each transaction from your selected workflow.
Workflow 1: Purchase Order - Receive Inventory - Enter Bills against Inventory - Bill Payment.
Use this workflow to track the goods and services you ordered. This includes creating purchase order, receiving inventory, entering bills against inventory, and paying bills.
Note: Purchase order is only available in QuickBooks Desktop Premier and Enterprise.
This workflow contains the following steps:
- Step 1: Create purchase order.
- Step 2: Receive inventory.
- Step 3: Enter bills against inventory.
- Step 4: Pay bills.
Workflow 2: Enter Bills - Pay Bills.
Use this workflow if your business does not track goods ordered. This includes entering and paying bills.
This workflow contains the following steps: