How money out works

What this does

Accounting → Money Out holds everything the shop pays for: checks, card charges, purchase orders, and the accounts payable workflow of bills, approvals, payments, and vendor credits. Vendors is the master list behind all of it.

Pay now, or bill now and pay later

Every purchase takes one of two paths.

Pay now. You paid at the counter, online, or by check, and the money has already left. Record it on Money Out → Checks (from a bank account) or Money Out → Credit Cards (on a card). The expense and the payment post in one entry the moment you save. Most of a shop's spending is this path, and most of it arrives on its own through the Transaction Inbox from bank alerts and forwarded receipts.

Bill now, pay later. The vendor extended terms. Enter the bill under Money Out → Accounts Payable so the expense is on the books and the amount owed is tracked; pay it when it's due. Accrual books see the expense on the bill date; the bank sees the money on the payment date.

A bill can be paid two ways, and the difference matters. Paying it from the Checks or Credit Cards screen (pick the vendor, tick the bill) creates a real check or card transaction you can find in the register, edit, and void. Recording a payment from the bill itself or from a pay run posts the payment to the ledger but creates no transaction record, so there's no edit or void for it afterward; see Paying bills. Prefer the entry screens.

What posts where

| You do | The books get | |---|---| | Write a check | Dr expense(s) / Cr bank account | | Enter a card charge | Dr expense(s) / Cr credit card | | Enter a card credit (refund) | Dr credit card / Cr expense | | Approve a bill | Dr expense(s) / Cr Accounts Payable | | Pay a bill | Dr Accounts Payable / Cr bank or card | | Apply a vendor credit | Nothing; the bill's balance drops | | Receive a purchase order | Nothing until you create the bill |

Before you start

Writing a check needs check.create (Owner, General Manager, Accountant); voiding one is Owner only. Card charges, bills, payments, and purchase orders need accounting.manage (Owner and General Manager). Vendors need vendor.create / vendor.edit (Owner and General Manager); deleting one is Owner only. Every posting respects the period lock.

Common problems

I paid a bill and the vendor's balance didn't go down. Check that the payment was recorded against the bill: on the Checks or Credit Cards screen that means ticking the bill under the vendor's open bills, not typing an expense line for the same amount. An expense line pays nobody's bill.

The same purchase is in the books twice. Once from the receipt (or the bill) and once from the bank alert. Reject the duplicate inbox row, or void the extra transaction from the register. The exact-key duplicate gate stops the second copy only when account, amount, date, and time all match.

A card refund shows as a charge. It was entered as a Charge. Void it and re-enter it as a Credit.