Lesson 36-- Paying Bills

Goldenseal is accounts payable software that makes it easy to take your hard-earned money and pay it to other people. This lesson shows you how to get money out of your checkbook and into the mailbox faster than you ever dreamed possible.

The Pay Bills Command

Use the Pay Bills command to view your Accounts Payable. It shows a 'quick report' window that lists what you owe to each material, subcontractor and other cost account. You can also use the Pay Bills command to pay some or all of your bills right now.

NOTE: In later lessons we'll look at other 'quick reports' that handle job costs, billing, payroll and deposits.

To view your current Accounts Payable or to pay bills, follow these steps:

Choose Pay Bills from the Bank menu.
You'll see a list of material suppliers, with the amount that you owe to each of them. HINT: If there are more vendors than can fit in the window, click on the down arrow to see the other vendors.
To choose which vendors to pay now, click in the Pay column. Goldenseal only pays the rows that have a check mark next to them.

HINT: At the top of the window, you can see the number of bills, the amount owed, and the amount being paid now.

Viewing Vendor Invoices

To view unpaid invoices for a vendor, double-click anywhere in their row. The Goldenseal accounting software will show you an itemized list of all unpaid transactions.

NOTE: If you previously made a payment 'on account' to this vendor, it will also be included in the invoice breakdown (it is subtracted from the current due balance).

Put a check mark in the Pay column for each invoice that you want to pay now. To pay just part of an invoice, enter the amount you want to pay into the Pay Now column.

To adjust an invoice because of discounts or finance charges, enter the amount into the Adjust column. Enter a negative number for a discount, or a positive number for a finance charge.

HINT: If you've set up vendor payment terms to include discounts or finance charges, Goldenseal calculates the adjustment automatically.

To return to the main Pay Bills window, click OK. You can also click Cancel to return without saving changes.

Changing Cutoff Dates

The Cutoff Date field at upper right determines which items are considered due or overdue. To see payables for a different date, follow these steps:

Click in the Cutoff Date field.
Type in a new date.
Hit the Tab or Enter key, or click in the table.

Changing the Items Shown

To change the items that are included in the list, click on the popup menu at the upper right corner. You can include material suppliers, subcontractors other cost accounts, or all three types of accounts. You can also include all vendors with open invoices, or just the vendors that were previously found with the Find command.

You can also use the Pay Bills command to pay payroll taxes and sales taxes that you collect.

Subcontractor Insurance

You can control how payments are made to subcontractors with insurance that has expired. To do so, follow these steps:

Choose Subcontractors from the Accounts menu.
Enter the insurance expiration dates for this account.
Enter the way you'd like to handle expired insurance for this account. You can forbid payments, give a warning, take an automatic deduction, or pay even if insurance is expired.
Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each subcontractor.

When you pay bills, Goldenseal will put an X in the Pay column for subcontractors who should not be paid because of expired insurance. It gives an alert for any subcontractors that have the 'Ask first' option.

Writing Checks

After you have decided which items to pay and have made any adjustments, click Create Checks to pay for the selected items.

Goldenseal will ask you which account to use for payment. If you choose a checking account, you also can decide which checkbook to use.

Click OK, and Goldenseal will automatically create a bank payment for every vendor that has a check mark in the Pay column.

Printing and Saving Reports

To get a printed report for all items in the current window, click the Print Report button. You will then see a dialog from your printer-- set it up, then click OK or Print.

To get a text file that contains all the information in the current window, click the Save As Text button. You'll be asked where to save the text file. Choose a location, give the file a name, then click Save. You can then switch to a word processor or spreadsheet program to open the file.

Expense Posting

After you pay for an expense, Goldenseal automatically changes the status of the original transaction to Paid, and closes it.

If you make a partial payment for an expense, the expense will have Part Paid status, and the remaining balance will show up in the Pay Bills report.

If you overpay for a transaction, Goldenseal marks the transaction as paid, and adds the excess to the 'on account' balance with that vendor. The next time you pay bills, Goldenseal subtracts the 'on account' balance from the amount you owe.

Finishing Up

In this lesson you have seen how to use the Pay Bills command to look at your Accounts Payable and pay your bills. The Goldenseal software make the entire expense tracking process much easier.

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