Quickbooks Desktop Online Bill Payment "Instructions" vs. "Payments"

Thank you for reaching out to us, @GrantMeThePower.

I'll be glad to help you with your QuickBooks Online Bill Payment concern.

It is possible that there was a duplicate payment that was processed on April 19 and April 20. Can you please check on your QuickBooks if there is really a duplicate vendor payment, if none I would suggest you contact your bank "Wells Fargo"- 3rd party processor to verify why you were able to receive 2 "Online Transmission Summary" on different dates.

You can also check on this article: Use Online Bill Pay in QuickBooks Desktop for more information about Desktop Online payment.

We're always here in the Community to help if you have other questions related to QuickBooks. Stay safe!

Hi Kenneth! Thanks for your help. I should have been more clear-it isn't just that it happened in this one instance. It seems to happen all of the time. 

Also, do you see in the image that the wording is different? One says "Payment Instructions" and the other says "Payments". The other difference is on the first one it says PAYMENT INSTRUCTIONS "You have added the following payment instruction:" and on the second it says TRANSACTION INSTRUCTIONS "These transactions have been sent to your financial institution". 

As to the question of duplicate payments, the answer is no. Quickbooks does not show a duplicate payment. It only shows the one. Please see image attached (using the example from the first screenshot).

I just typed out my reply but it didn't seem to work. If this is a duplicate I'm sorry. Thanks for your help. 

It is not a duplicate payment in quickbooks as you can see from the attached (using the example from the first screenshot) it only shows one payment. 

IN the original screenshots you can see that the language is different also. 

On the 19th it says "PAYMENT INSTRUCTIONS You have added the following payment instruction:"

On the 20th it says "TRANSACTION INSTRUCTIONS These transactions have been sent to your financial institution"

Hi there, GrantMeThePower.

Thanks for adding more information about your concern. This gives us a clearer view of what happened to the bill payments. Let me help and route you in the right direction to resolve the issue.

The information we received is dependent upon what Wells Fargo sends over to us. It goes the same way with the terms used for the downloaded entries.

To keep your books in order, you can either record the transactions or match them. Check out this article for the step-by-step process: Add and match Bank Feed transactions.

For future reference, I’m attaching a guide that covers all the details on how to handle online banking activities. Make sure to choose the topic to view the complete guide: Get started with Bank Feeds for QuickBooks Desktop.

Reach out to the Community again if you have other concerns or questions. I’ll get back to answer them for you. Have a good one.

I can't really answer you question, but I can make a better guess than you have gotten so far. There are 2 entities involved in bill pay, the payment processor and the bank. I think both these messages are from the payment processor. The first tells you they have received your "payment instruction" and the second tells you they have sent your "transaction instruction" to your bank.

That's my guess anyway! I use Wells Fargo too and I get these same messages.

Haven't used Bill Pay before and trying to figure this out.

Under Bill Pay - I can select "Bank Payment" or "Schedule Online Payment"

What is the difference.  I scheduled an online payment for 1 vendor on Friday, I thought it would be there today.  Upon further review, it'll be there by Thursday.  (AND - For some reason it assigned a check number).

What's the difference in the 2 and is there any charge for one over the other.

(QuickBooks Pro Plus 2022 Destop

I'm here to share some information about the difference about the two different methods, @Missgoode2shews1.

You can choose Schedule Online Payment for future bill payments. For Bank Payment (ACH), you'll receive their payment within 3 business day standard delivery. 

Also, a check number is only generated once the check has been printed and sent out from Melio's bank.

For more information or if you still have questions about Bill Pay, you can reach their customer support through chat. Check out this article for detailed guidance: Pay bills online from QuickBooks Desktop.

See this article for more information about paying bills in QuickBooks from the Vendors menu: Pay bills in QuickBooks Desktop.

To see the complete list of workflows and other vendor-related transactions, refer to this article: Accounts Payable workflows in QuickBooks Desktop.

I'm always here if you need more help with paying your bills. Let me know in the Reply section below. Stay safe and have a great day!