Money out mirrors money in: the purchase order (what you asked for), the bill (what you owe), and the bill payment (what you sent).
Entering a bill
Open Bills and create one. Pick the vendor, the date and the due date, and add lines with their expense categories. If the bill arrived as a PDF, attach it: the document stays with the bill forever, so the original is always one click from the entry it explains. A purchase order you already entered can fill the bill in for you; if that bill is later voided or deleted, the order gets those quantities back so the corrected bill can be made from it.
Passing a cost on. A line can be billed to a customer: pick them in its Billable to column. The cost waits under Time > Invoice hours and expenses until you put it on their invoice.
Holding back retainage from a subcontractor. Open Retainage on the bill and type the percent you hold back until their work is accepted. The held part sits in Retainage Payable, so Pay bills offers only the rest. Once the rest is paid, open the bill and click Release retainage under Retainage: it is added back to the bill, due from the release date plus the bill's terms, and you pay it like any bill. It counts on the subcontractor's 1099 in the year you pay it. Reports > Retainage lists what you still hold.
Paying
Pay bills lets you settle one or many at once: tick the bills, choose the account the money leaves from, and record it. Paying by paper? TaDa Books prints checks on standard check stock, and the check register under Transactions keeps the numbering straight.
When the payment clears the bank, the feed line matches the payment you recorded instead of creating anything new, so nothing doubles.
A check number stays used once it is written. Delete the check or the bill payment later and the next number suggested on that bank account is still past it, so two paper checks never share a number.
Got something wrong on a payment? The pencil on a Payments made row (or on the payment inside a bill) opens the payment itself: change its date, method, check number, memo, or the account it came out of. A printed check keeps its number and bank (void it from Print Checks to change those), and what the payment paid stays as it is - void it and pay again for that.
A paid bill opens for editing like any other; only the vendor stays, and the total cannot drop below what is already paid. A partly received purchase order edits too: lines that have arrived or been billed keep their account and cannot go below what came in, and everything else - memo, dates, prices, new lines - is free.
No vendors yet? Start a bill anyway: type the vendor's name in the bill and it is added to Contacts as you go. Paying by check suggests the next check number on the bank account you pay from.
Approvals
A company can ask for bills to be approved before they are paid. Turn it on in Settings > Accounting > Bill approvals and set the amount bills start waiting from (leave it empty and every bill waits).
A waiting bill is in your books the moment it is saved: its expense, the vendor's balance and the A/P Aging all count it. It just cannot be paid, matched to a payment, or settled with a credit until it is approved. Pay bills shows it with an AWAITING APPROVAL chip and no tick.
Who approves: everyone who can grant books access for the company. A bill they enter themselves is approved as they save it, unless you tick A bill an approver enters still needs someone else to approve it, so nobody approves their own.
Bills > Awaiting approval lists what waits, with the person who entered each one. Tick several and Approve selected, or Reject one with a reason. The bill window shows the same: what the approval says, and Approve or Reject for the person who may decide.
- A rejected bill cannot be paid. Correct it and it waits for approval again; or void it.
- Raising a bill's total, or changing its vendor, asks again. Lowering it keeps the approval.
- A bill that repeats on a schedule always waits, and an imported bill with money still owed follows the same rule.
- Someone who cannot approve also cannot pay that vendor's A/P straight from a check or a bank line while one of its bills waits, and cannot pay more than a bill's balance. Matching a payment that already left the bank, by someone who can approve, approves the bill in the same step.
- Switch approvals off and everything that waited can be paid as usual. Switching off, raising the amount or dropping the second approver takes someone who can approve; anyone who can edit the books can tighten them.
The Overview and a count on Bills (and on the Vendors group) show how many bills wait. An email to the approvers goes out when your platform has bill approval emails switched on.
Vendor credits
When a vendor owes you money back (goods you returned, a price they corrected, a refund they will take off your next bill), record it under Bills > Vendor credits > New vendor credit. Pick the vendor, type their credit number if they gave one, and add lines with the account the cost comes back off (usually the same one the bill charged). It lowers what you owe that vendor the moment you save it.
Spending it. Open Pay bills and pick the vendor: a green strip says how much credit they owe you, and a Credit used column appears beside Pay amount. Put the credit against the bills it should pay down. The oldest credit is spent first, and no money leaves the bank for it. A bill paid partly by credit and partly by a check takes both in the same run.
Changing your mind. A bill lists the credits spent on it beside its payments; the arrow on a credit's row takes it off, so the bill owes that amount again and the credit is free for another bill. The credit's own window lists the bills it paid down, with the same arrow. Voiding or deleting a credit gives every bill it paid back its balance. Once part of a credit is used, its vendor stays and its total cannot drop below what is used.
When the vendor pays you back instead. Open the credit and press Paid back: the date, the amount, how they paid (a check, a transfer, back to your card) and the bank account it went into. The money lands in that account and the credit comes down by the same amount, so what the vendor owes you and the bank agree. The refunds are listed in the credit's window, each with a void button that gives the credit back. While a refund stands, the credit cannot be voided or deleted: void the refund first.
A bill cannot come to less than zero: if you type one and the lines go below zero, the editor points you here. Overpaying a bill in Pay bills still works too; the extra stays with the vendor as credit, in the same pool.
Recurring costs
Bills that repeat (rent on your office, software, insurance) can post themselves. Open the bill, press Memorize, then open Memorized on the Bills tab and press the repeat arrows on its row: pick how often (weekly, every two weeks, monthly, quarterly, yearly or your own), the first date, and when it ends (never, on a date, or after a number of bills). Due sets each bill's due date that many days after its bill date; it starts with the gap the memorized bill had.
From then on each bill is created on its date, the next time anyone who can edit the books opens them, with the same vendor, lines and amounts. If one cannot post (the period is closed, the vendor or an account was archived), the schedule pauses itself and its row says why; fix it and press resume, and nothing is skipped. A bill whose amount changes every month is better without a schedule: use the template on the day and type the new amount.
Keeping an eye on what you owe
The Overview shows what is due and what is overdue, and the payable aging under Reports breaks it down by vendor and by how long it has waited. Each vendor's page carries their whole history: bills, payments, documents and notes in one place.
The board
The switch at the start of the Bills toolbar shows your bills as a list or as a board, and TaDa Books remembers which you picked. The board shows where everything stands at once, in four columns, each with its count and its total:
- To approve: bills waiting for an approver (shown while bill approvals are on, or while a bill still waits);
- Overdue: approved bills past their due date, oldest first;
- To pay: approved bills not yet due, the soonest first;
- Paid: bills paid in full and dated inside the date range.
Unpaid bills always show, whatever the date range. Each card carries the one step that fits it: Approve (for someone who may approve that bill) or Pay, which opens Pay bills with the bill picked. Clicking a card opens the bill. The search box, the date range, Print and Download are the same ones the list uses.
Each column pages like any table: pick how many cards a page shows (TaDa Books remembers it), then move through each column with Prev and Next.