--- title: "Purchases: Bills & Payments" description: "Record supplier bills, get them approved by someone else, pay them from the right account and handle vendor credits and refunds. Your payables, under control." url: "https://bareledger.app/guides/purchases" category: "Purchases & expenses" updated: "2026-10-29" publisher: "BareLedger (Syneria Technologies OPC)" --- # Purchases: Bills & Payments > Record supplier bills, get them approved, pay them, and handle vendor credits and refunds. This page walks through the whole journey on the buying side — from a supplier's bill landing in your inbox to it being paid off. ## Step 1: Record the bill Go to **Purchases → Bills** and click **+ New bill**. Fill in: - **Supplier** — pick them from the list (or add them first if they're new to you). - **Date** and **due date**. - **Line items** — what you bought and which expense account it should hit. If you've set this supplier's products up before, picking one auto-fills the price and account for you. Click **Save as draft**. Nothing is recorded in your books yet — this just saves your work so far, and you can still edit it freely while it's a draft. **Tip**: open the bill and use **Upload file** under Attachments to keep a copy of the supplier's actual bill (PDF or photo) alongside the record. **A bill you know you'll get again**: instead of re-entering it every month, post it once and click **Make recurring** — see [Recurring Transactions](https://bareledger.app/guides/recurring). ## Step 2: Submit, review, and approve Open the bill and click **Submit for review** (the bill form also has a **Submit for review** button that saves and submits in one step). Someone other than you — you can never review your own bill — clicks **Mark reviewed**, and then an approver — a third person, not you and not the reviewer — clicks **Approve & post**. This single click both approves the bill and records it in your books at the same time, and it's the moment the bill gets its official number (something like `BI-2026-000123`). If it needs fixing instead, a reviewer or approver clicks **Reject** with a note explaining why, and it goes back to Draft for you to fix and resubmit. **If a bill is sitting around waiting on someone**, open it and use **Notify reviewers** (or **Notify approvers**, once it's reviewed) to send a nudge straight away, instead of waiting for the automatic reminder your company may have configured (see [Settings](https://bareledger.app/guides/settings)). ## Step 3: Pay the bill The quickest way is from the bill itself: open the posted bill and click **Record payment**. The payment form opens already set to **"Paid to supplier"**, with the supplier picked and the full outstanding amount applied to that bill. (You can also start from **Purchases → Supplier Payments → + New supplier payment** and set the supplier, account and amount yourself. Money coming in from customers lives on the mirror page, **Collections → Customer Payments**.) Then choose the account the money came out of under **Paid from**, how it was paid (bank transfer, credit card, check, etc.), the date it actually left, and a reference such as the bank confirmation number. The **Paid from** list shows every account money can move through — your bank and cash accounts, but also a credit card, a loan, or your owner's-capital account when that is genuinely where the money came from (see *If you paid it yourself* below). Control accounts like Accounts Payable are deliberately not on the list. Under **Apply to open bills**, you'll see every unpaid bill for that supplier. Adjust how much of the payment goes toward each one — you're not limited to one bill per payment: you can split a single payment across several bills, or only pay part of one and finish it off later. You can attach the payment confirmation (bank slip, card statement line, transfer screenshot, PDF) so the evidence stays with the record. Click **Save as draft**, then run the payment through the same **Submit → Review → Approve & post** steps as the bill. Once approved, the payment gets its own number, the money is recorded as moved, and the bill's outstanding balance goes down (or clears completely, if you paid it in full). Open the bill again and its **Payment summary** lists every payment and vendor credit applied to it. **Withholding tax**: if your company records creditable withholding tax at invoicing time (the default), the withholding is captured on the bill itself when it posts. If your administrator has switched this to collection time under Settings, the withholding is instead captured as the payment posts. When you withhold tax from a supplier, you owe *them* a certificate proving it — issue one under **Compliance → WHT Certificates** (the mirror image of the **Withholding Credits (2307)** a customer gives you; see [Compliance & Tax Filing](https://bareledger.app/guides/compliance)). ### If you paid it yourself Paid a supplier from your own card or personal bank account? Record the payment exactly as above, but under **Paid from** pick the account that reflects your arrangement with the company: - **Owner's Capital** (or a similar equity account) if you're treating the money as a contribution to the business that won't be repaid. - A **Due to Owner** / **Officer's Advances** liability account if the company will pay you back — create one under Chart of Accounts first, and clear it later with a journal entry when the reimbursement is transferred. Either way the bill shows as paid, nothing touches your bank reconciliation (the money never passed through a company account), and the only thing left in the books is what the company now owes you or what you've put in. Any bank fees you paid personally on top go in as a small journal entry against the same account. ### Paying by company credit card Set the card up once under **Bank & reconciliation** with the account type **Credit card** and link it to a **liability** account such as *Credit Card Payable* — a card is money you owe, so it belongs with your other debts rather than pretending to be cash. On the bank screens the balance owed shows as a negative figure: enter statement opening and closing balances as negatives, and card charges import as money out. Then pay bills from that account like any other, and reconcile the card statement the same way you reconcile a bank statement. ## If a supplier gives you a credit or refund Go to **Purchases → Vendor Credits** and record it the same way you would a bill — or, faster, open the original posted bill and click **Create vendor credit** to start one pre-filled with that bill's details. Run it through the same review/approval steps. Once posted, it automatically reduces what you still owe on that bill, without you having to do anything extra. ## Common mix-ups - Expecting a separate "Bill Payment Voucher" document — payments generate a general payment PDF, not a distinct bill-specific one; the printable document reviewers see during approval is the same one used for any payment. - Trying to reverse a bill that already has a payment or credit applied to it — you'll need to undo those first. - Forgetting a bill isn't in your books yet until it's been approved — a draft or submitted bill won't show up on financial reports.