The correct way to handle vendor payments in QuickBooks is a two-step process. First you enter the bill when you receive it. Then you record the payment separately when you actually pay it. This keeps your books accurate and gives you visibility into what you owe at any given time.

When you enter a bill in QuickBooks, you assign it to the appropriate expense category (or asset account if you’re buying equipment). Behind the scenes, this creates a credit to Accounts Payable and a debit to whatever expense or asset category you chose. The bill now shows up as an amount owed to that vendor. You can see it on your AP aging report alongside everything else that’s outstanding.

When you’re ready to pay, use the Pay Bills function in QuickBooks rather than writing a check or creating an expense transaction. Select the bill you entered earlier, choose your payment method, and QuickBooks will reduce your Accounts Payable balance and reduce your bank account. The expense was already recorded when you entered the bill, so you’re not double-counting anything.

The mistake a lot of business owners make is skipping the bill entry and going straight to writing a check or recording an expense. It feels faster, and technically the expense still hits the right category. But you lose the AP workflow entirely. You have no record of what’s outstanding to each vendor, no aging report to review, and no way to catch a bill that slipped through unpaid. If a vendor calls asking where their payment is, you’re digging through bank statements instead of pulling up a clean report.

For the expense categories themselves, use whatever fits the purchase. Rent goes to rent expense. Office supplies go to office supplies. Materials for a job go to cost of goods sold or a job-specific cost account. The category you assign when entering the bill is what drives your financial reporting, so be consistent. If you’re unsure where something belongs, your Bronx bookkeepers can set up a chart of accounts that makes categorization straightforward for your type of business.

If you have vendors you pay immediately with a credit card at the point of sale, using an Expense transaction is acceptable since there was never really a bill to enter. But for any vendor who sends you an invoice with payment terms, always go through the Enter Bill and Pay Bills workflow. This is especially important if you have multiple vendors with different due dates. The AP aging report becomes your to-do list for bill payment each week, and nothing falls through the cracks.

One more thing worth noting. If you’ve been recording vendor payments as direct expenses or checks and want to fix your process going forward, you don’t necessarily need to go back and re-enter everything historically. But starting the two-step process now will immediately improve your visibility into cash obligations and make your monthly financial statements more reliable.