Pay bills in QuickBooks Desktop

Learn how to pay your bills in QuickBooks Desktop for Windows and Mac.

After you record what you owe your vendors in QuickBooks Desktop, you can go to the Pay Bills window to settle your payables. If you received a discount or credit from a vendor, you can also apply it to your bill payment to reduce your total payable.

Pay bills or payables

When you pay bills, don’t write a check. If you do, the bills remain open and unpaid which leads to inaccurate financial reports. Here’s how to pay a bill properly.

To watch more how-to videos, visit our video section.

1. Go to the Vendors menu, then select Pay Bills.
2. Select the correct accounts payable account from the dropdown.
3. Select the checkboxes of the bills you want to pay from the table.
   Note: To unmark or mark all the bills in the list, select Clear Selections or Select All Bills.
4. Set any discount or credit that you want to apply to the bills.
   • Discount - Select this if your vendor gave you a discount for this transaction.
   • Credit - Select this if you received a credit from your vendor, and you used it to reduce your total bill amount.
5. Enter the date you paid the bill.
6. Select the payment method:
   • Check - Select Assign check number if you plan to manually write the check. Select To be Printed to print the check or add it to the list of checks to print.
   • Credit Card - You can use credit cards to pay bills, then print a payment stub.
   • Online Bill Payment - You can directly pay your vendor bills in QuickBooks. It also records your payment automatically so your reports are accurate.
   • Online Bank Payment - The payment processor will print and mail a check to the employee. You can select Include reference number if you want the bill or credit reference number to be sent along with your name and account number.
   • Cash, Debit or ATM card, Paypal, or EFT - You can select Check, then Assign check number even when you’re not paying with an actual check. Enter the type of payment in the check number field or leave it blank.
7. Select Pay Selected Bills.
8. Select Done, or select Pay More Bills if you have other bills you need to pay.

Paying bills is part of your usual accounts payable workflow in QuickBooks Desktop. To see the complete list of workflows and other vendor-related transactions, go to Account Payable Workflow.