vendor default expense account

Welcome to the QuickBooks Community, northbynortheast.

Being able to set up a default account for vendors is unavailable in QuickBooks Desktop(QBDT) for Mac.

I'll take note of this and add it to our list of proposals. Our engineering team always looking for ways to improve our software. They might consider adding this feature in future updates.

In the meantime, you can visit our Product Update page. To stay current on the latest news and updates happening in QuickBooks.

I'll add this article so you have a guide on how to reconcile bank and credit card accounts(Mac).

Reply to this post if you have further questions about your account. We're always here to help you. Have a nice day!

We need the ability to use COG or other types of accounts for vendors.  Restricting it to only expense accounts is very frustrating, and the same issue doesn't exist in QBD.  

Hello there, @LaughingYeti. I want to ensure this will be taken care of so you'll get back to working order.

Thanks for joining this thread. To clarify, may I know where specific part of the transactions for vendors you want to select the COGS and any other account? In QuickBooks, you have the ability to choose any type of accounts depending on the entry you're trying to input. Any additional information you can provide is a great help so I can give a timely solution. 

For further guidance managing expense transactions, feel free to browse this page: Manage vendors.

I'm always here ready to lend a hand if you have any other concerns managing your expense transactions in QuickBooks. Have a good one and stay safe. 

I'm not talking about issues with entering transactions.  In the vendor details there is an option to set a default expense account.  Why is this limited to expenses?  What if we want to use a COG, liablity, or asset account as default for the vendor?  This was not restricted in QBD, but in QBO the system will only allow default accounts to be expenses.  I need the default to be an other current asset account for a vendor, but QBO doesn't allow that.

A default expense account for your vendor is indeed suitable for your business. I'll guide you on how you can submit a request for this feature, Laughing. 

You can let our product team know how this customized function for your vendor can greatly give convenience to your company. We intend to deliver you the best experience. You'll want to send feedback by following the steps below:

1. Access your QuickBooks Online company.
2. On the top right corner, click the Gear icon.
3. Below the Profile column, select Send Feedback.
4. Enter a brief description of your feature request.
5. Once you're ready, press Send.

At the same time, you can check out our Customer Feedback page to see if there are updates on any requests that have already been submitted. You can also add vendor bank account information directly into Online Bill Pay. I've added this article for your reference: Add A Vendor Bank Account.

To know more about how you can pay bills in QBO, check out these resources for additional information:
 

• Enter bills and record bill payments in QuickBooks Online
• What is Online Bill Pay?
• Pay bills in Online Bill Pay

Keep in touch if you have any concerns with your vendors. I'll always be right here to help.

I have already submitted feedback, but I know that all goes in the dustbin.  Some of the community threads that I've responded to are more than a year old, and I can imagine those users also put in feeback.  This is a simple restriction that QBO has on it for no reason just like the requirement that reconcilations can only be undone by accountant users.  These are non-sensical settings by Intuit, and these boilerplate responses only increase user frustration with QBO pushing us to look for other accounting solutions.

No matter what the vendor default is set to ( and prior versions allowed you to choose up to THREE defaults!), when an invoice is uploaded, it just assigns a random account. This SUCKS. It is faster and easier to just hand key in vendor invoices than to use their lame “upload” function. There is also NO SORT by vendor in the review function, again, this sucks. The old desktop version was doooooo much better!!!

There is no rhyme or reason as to where invoices are assigned in uploads. The only sure thing is it won’t be assigned to the default that you keyed in!

Yes, I set the vendor DEFAULT expense account and it never defaults.   I am entering my check detail for reconciliation. The bank only downloads the check number and amount.  I am tring to enter the vendor and the expense category.  I am using cash method and QB online.

Why is this so hard?  It says "DEFAULT EXPENSE CATEGORY".  Doesn't that mean this vendor will always default to what you selected?

I want to ensure this is taken care of, CPA239.

Yes, once you set up a default expense category on the vendor's profile, that category will automatically appear when you create a transaction using the same vendor. 

On the other hand, transactions downloaded from the bank need to be categorized manually or setup a bank rule in QBO that will automatically categorize a transaction for that vendor.

For more details, check out this article: Categorize online bank transactions in QuickBooks Online.

Furthermore, I'm sharing this article on how to track bills and record payments for future reference: Enter and manage bills and bill payments in QuickBooks Online.

We'll be around if you need additional assistance in managing your vendors and transactions in QuickBooks Online (QBO). Just click the Reply button below. Have a good one!

I have the same issue - I need to be able to post vendor invoices to the inventory asset account and cannot choose that default account when setting up vendors.

Hi Marge,

There is a work around that I found.  Either before or after you set up a vendor change the asset/liability or whatever you want to use to an expense account.  Set the vendor's default to that account, and after you save that go back to that account and change it back to whatever it was originally (asset/liability/etc).  The default account for that vendor will then be the account you wanted even if it is not an expense.  Please note that this may not work if you are trying to use a QBO default account that they don't allow modifications on.

Hope that helps.  This worked for us and I imagine it will work for you, however manipulating the system like this must be done at your own risk.

@LaughingYeti

Thanks for that workaround!  That seems to work well for the non-default accounts in QBO.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work for inventory as @Marge816 asked about because you can't change the account type for the default Inventory Asset account.