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Supplier bills and payments

Log what suppliers ask you to pay in Catalog → Purchases: bills from a receipt, an order, typed lines or just the total, due dates from payment terms, and supplier payments split across open bills, oldest first or by hand.

7 min read · Last updated 2026-10-21

A bill is what a supplier asks you to pay. A supplier payment is money you handed over. Both live on the Bills tab of Catalog → Purchases, next to the orders and receipts they come from (see Purchases & suppliers). Together they answer “who do we owe, how much, and by when?”

Bills here don't post to Books: Supplier bills and payments are tracked in Purchases only. They don't appear in Books → Money out, on the Bank tab, or in Books reports such as Profit & Loss, and they don't change any account balance. If you want a supplier payment to count in Books, also record it as an expense in Money out. Bills never change stock either, because only receipts do.

The Bills tab

The list shows each bill's Bill number (with the supplier's invoice number, or the receipt or order it's for), Supplier, Status (with a chip like “Due in 3 days”, “Due today” or “4 days overdue”), Total, Balance, Billed date and Due date. Filter with All, Unpaid (unpaid or partly paid), Overdue, Paid and Void, pick a supplier, or search by bill number, supplier invoice number or supplier. The Unpaid bills and Due this week tiles above the tabs sum it up, and clicking them filters the list.

A bill counts as overdue once its due date has passed and it isn't fully paid. You never set a status yourself. It follows from what's been paid.

Add a bill

There are three ways to start, depending on what the bill covers:

1. Supplier. From a receipt or order, the supplier is fixed. On a new bill, pick one (or click New to add one). A receipt logged with no supplier lets you pick the supplier here.
2. Invoice number and dates. Enter the Supplier invoice no. and the Bill date (today by default). For the Due date, pick a date, tap +7d, +15d or +30d, or leave it empty. Left empty, it's set to the bill date plus the supplier's payment terms. If the supplier has no terms, the bill has no due date and never shows as overdue.
3. Check the amounts and save. Lines that came from a receipt or order are shown read-only. Tax can't be more than the bill total. Add Notes if useful and click Add bill. The confirmation shows the bill number, total and due date.

One bill per delivery, or one for the whole order: Each receipt can carry one live bill. An order can be billed either once for the whole order or receipt by receipt, but not both. LogAI stops you if you try (“… is already billed on BILL-…”), so a delivery is never billed twice. If deliveries arrive in parts, bill each receipt. Billing the whole order bills everything ordered, even lines that never came after a Close short. A voided bill frees the receipt or order to be billed again.

Record a payment

1. Open Record payment. Use Record payment on the Bills tab (Pay on a phone), on a bill (that bill is ticked for its balance), or on a supplier's drawer. From the Bills tab, pick the Supplier first. The header shows how much they're owed across how many open bills.
2. Amount and date. Enter the Amount paid, or click Pay everything to fill in the full amount owed. Paid on defaults to today and can't be in the future.
3. How you paid. Under How, pick UPI (the default), Bank transfer, Cash, Card, Cheque or Other. Add a Reference (UTR, cheque no.) and a Note if you like.
4. Apply to bills. By default the amount pays the supplier's open bills oldest first: earliest due date first, with bills that have no due date last. Click Pick bills myself to tick bills and type how much goes on each. You can't put more on a bill than its balance, and the bills together can't add up to more than the amount paid. Click Oldest first to switch back.
5. Save. The footer shows what the payment settles and what “stays as credit”. Click Record payment. Each bill's balance and status update straight away.

One payment can cover several bills, and several payments can cover one bill. Any part of a payment that isn't applied to a bill (an advance, or a payment to a supplier with no open bills) is kept on the payment as unapplied. It shows as “… unapplied” in the supplier's Recent payments.

Unapplied money isn't used automatically: There's no step to apply an earlier payment's unapplied amount to a bill you add later, and the supplier's You owe figure doesn't subtract it. If you paid an advance and the bill has now arrived, void the advance payment and record it again so it's applied to the new bill.

Fix a mistake

• Void a payment. On the bill's Payments list, click Void next to the payment, add an optional reason and confirm. The amount goes back onto every bill it settled. Use it for a bounced cheque or a payment logged by mistake. A voided payment stays on record marked Void.
• Void a bill. Void bill on the bill's drawer works only while nothing has been paid on it (“This bill has payments against it. Void the payment first.”). The bill stops counting as owed. Stock and the delivery it came from don't change, and the receipt or order can be billed again.
• Wrong amount or date on a bill or payment? You can't edit them. Void it and add it again. Bills and payments can't be deleted.

What a bill's drawer shows

A band with Total, Paid and Balance, the bill's lines or amounts, its Payments (number, date, method and amount, with Record to add one), the order and receipt it's linked to, details (supplier, supplier invoice number, bill date, due date and “Overdue by” days), attachments (attach the supplier's invoice as a PDF or photo) and a timeline of who added, paid or voided it.

Common situations

Who can do what

Bills and payments use the Supplier bills permission item in Roles & Permissions. Only the Super Admin has it to begin with.

Bill amounts are always visible to anyone who can view bills, even without Costs & profit. That permission only hides costs on orders and receipts. A bill made from an order or receipt still uses the real costs, even when the person adding it can't see them.

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