Let me count the ways...account payables

[mis4ta]

exactly how many ways is there to enter a payment towards a vendor invoice? Vendor is the same thing as bills? right? Does it depend how the invoice was entered to be begin with? I did an aged payable report, but it seems like if you don't have the correct accounting month, there are so many steps. I'm trying to enter checks, some old, some new, some not so new. What is the easiest way without going crazy? All in all, I'm trying to reconcile one bloody month at a time! What are the step from entering an invoice from vendor and then going after the fact to pay the invoice whether it be july or august or whatever month it is in? Why can't it be simple as just putting in the unpaid invoice when receiving the bill and then go in to pay it when she write the checks to pay it?...whatever date it was.

NOTE: the owner uses "PT" just for data entry purposes.

[LauraG]

Part of the answer depends on how you pay your bills and whether you are cash or accrual based company....

If you are an accrual based company...

If you receive the bill in August and pay in it in August then just skip the Invoice step and just use the Payment screen to create the check. You can also use the Write Checks screen if you wish too but I prefer sticking with the Payment screen.

If you receive a bill in August but don't pay until September or later then you would create the invoice with the August date and then use Payments to write the check.

If you are a cash based company then you write your checks according to when you pay them.

We are an accrual based company. We pay most of the bills in the month received. For consistancy I enter all bills as invoices and then pay them through the payments screen. This insures that the expense has the corresponding Invoice date and not the check date.

[mis4ta]

Accural based.

There have been quite a few people that has been in this system, how do I know for sure how they entered these bills? It doesn't seem like they all did it the same way because I'm running into too many holes.

[LauraG]

There really is one way to enter bills and that's through the Purchase/Receive Inventory screen. Even if there is a Purchase order entered first, the actual invoice still gets created here.

What type of "holes" are you talking about? Can you give us some examples?

[Lisa_p]

Laura - if they have the 2006 version, there is a new "bills", "enter bills" on the tasks menu which is just another route to "purchases/receive inventory". Helps those people who don't understand why the phone bill would go into purchases/receive inventory.

If you're doing this after the fact, I don't think there's any virtue in entering the bills and then the payments. I would just enter the payments as sequentially as possible and reconcile each month as you go. If you enter a vendor for whom there is an outstanding bill, it will automatically show and you can mark it to pay it. Otherwise, just hit whatever expense account is appropriate.

>>I did an aged payable report, but it seems like if you don't have the correct accounting month, there are so many steps.<<

I don't understand this - if you run an aged payble as of whatever date, you'll see all outstanding payables as of that date. Where's the problem?

[LauraG]

Lisa.

thanks for the updates on the new features in 2006. We have purchased the program but we have not installed it yet. I am thinking of starting a new company file for the 2006 data and will do it with PT2006. This new "pay bills' sounds great.

I agree that if he is entering payments after the fact and he does not care about the timing of the invoice vs the check date then he could use the "write checks" or "payment" screen. But if they are paying bills 30+ days after the invoice arrives and are an accrual based company then they really *should* enter the invoice in the right month. It also makes doing the bank rec easier because the checks are in the right date order instead of hap-hazardly entered so that the payments are in the correct month. If they don't care what month expenses/payments hit then again just writing the checks is the fastest way of getting this done.

[mis4ta]

>>I did an aged payable report, but it seems like if you don't have the correct accounting month, there are so many steps.<<


For example: I ran the aged payables report. that report is going to show me the all the bills owed for all my vendors, right? well, say I have a check I need to enter in to clear the particular payable, when I go to click on it, it's not there. Shouldn't it be in the "pay invoice" section that I would have to check off to pay it? The accounting month is different at the bottom of the screen so I would have to change accounting months or find transaction etc... Why when I click on the aged payable line of the invoice that my cursor is on and just pay damn thing? !!!!!!!!!!!!!! I always have to be consious of what month I'm in. I would like to just get in, pay the bill with the check written or from the bank statement and get out. In order to make my dreams come true with that, would I have to enter everything throught the GL? What effect would that be on the rest of the many steps in peachtree?

by the way, it's peachtree complete accounting 2006 I'm using.

[Lisa_p]

>>I would like to just get in, pay the bill with the check written or from the bank statement and get out. In order to make my dreams come true with that, would I have to enter everything throught the GL?<<

Go to Tasks, Payments, enter the vendor and record the check against the appropriate invoices.

No, you do not have to enter everything through the GL.

As for Periods - you can also work in future periods, you just can't enter new transactions in old periods.

So, if you're doing all of 2005 you can just set your period for January and as you enter stuff, just make sure you enter the correct dates.

Also, as Laura (I think) suggested in another of your threads, if you just work off the bank statements chronologically, then you can just change the period as you complete each month. I'm also a proponent of doing one month at a time and reconciling each month before moving on.

Hope this helps! Hang in there.

[mis4ta]

Thanks so much for all your advice. Which, by the way, I took tonight, in fact. I made a binder and put all the bank statements in chronological order and took it on. It was actually fun for the first time when I started to feel like I had a break through!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Keep it coming!!!!! This is way better than any 800- support phone call.