How do I enter an invoice after it has already been paid?

Hello,

Thank you for your response.

I followed the directions you gave (changed the expense account to Accounts Payable and entered the County Treasurer as the Customer, saved and closed) but it did not create a bill.

What did I do wrong?

Thank you for getting back to us, @csoffice.

Allow me to chime in and add some details about paying your bills to help you further.

You need to enter your County Treasurer as a vendor since you're paying them for the Property Tax.

Also, after editing the check, you can now create the bill for your tax. Let me show you how:

1. Click on Vendor from the menu tab.
2. Select Enter Bills.
3. Enter the vendor name.
4. Under the Expenses tab, select the Property Tax.
5. Click on Save & Close.

Once done, you can now pay the bill using the Pay Bills feature and following the steps provided by my colleague above.

I've provided some screenshots to better help you in paying the bill.

That's it! Please let me know if you have any other questions about paying your bills. I'll be here to provide you further assistance.

Thank you Alessandra.

Just to be clear, I need to enter the tax bill as usual, then use Pay Bills and apply the credits which were created when I changed the check?

The way I understood the first response was that the bill would be automatically created once I changed the check. Your post makes more sense. I will try this tomorrow when I'm back in the office.

Hello there, @csoffice.

Thank you for getting back to us here in the Community and verifying the steps about linking the check to the bill in QuickBooks Desktop.

Yes, you're correct. You need to create a bill first to record the payment. After that, you can follow the steps provided by my colleague, Alessandra_B to record the payment linking the check you've modified to close the bill. 

Please stay in touch once you've tried the steps above. I'll be happy to help you further. Have a great week ahead. 

Great - this is really helpful!

I have one more question.  I created a bill and see the credits in the Pay Bill section.

Do I click on "To Be Printed" and not actually print a check? 

Or "Assign Check Number" and fill in the check number on the original check that was written?

This worked perfectly!

Thanks to everyone for the help!

I had the same problem. Why do I now have the original payment plus a zero amount payment in my bank ledger. Thanks!

I followed the steps and it is working, thank you for posting this.

Quickbooks Hosting

Hi. It seems that I have very similar situation.

I wrote a check but I did not apply this check to A/P at first. I linked the check with an invoice but I did not set the credit and I got an additional check written by QB for 0.00.

Memo: QB generated zero amount for this transation bill payment. 

How do I fix this situation ?

Thanks. 

Hello there, sk33.

When you write Checks to pay for existing bills, the two transactions won't be linked. The bill remains in an unpaid status. You can either delete the check or delete the bill. If you want to keep the bill you'll want to use the Pay Bills option to pay it. If you wish to retain the Check, you may not need to create a bill and directly post it to the bank instead of the Accounts Payable account. 

Here's how to pay a bill:

1. Go to the Vendors menu and select Pay Bills. 
2. Look and select the bill to pay. 
3. Select the bill payment details and click Pay Select Bills. 

To know more on how to handle vendor transactions, you can use these links:

• Bill shows as unpaid after writing a check in QuickBooks Desktop
• Accounts Payable workflows in QuickBooks Desktop

Let me know if there's anything else. Take care and have a great day!

Thank you! It worked.

My situation was to find a way to add an old Bill that was already paid far in the past (by direct debit), to a current Project in QB in order to see the project costs. I merely wanted to mark the Bill as paid, without affecting our bank account.

We could not link the Online banking payment to the Bill because those bank transactions were older than 90 days and could not be linked to QB (we recently started using QB). I tried everything, but no check or credit note payment method would prevent the Cash and Cash Equivalents Account from decreasing, however I needed the Project Expense Account to increase in order to show that those Materials-Cost of Sales were part of the Project expenditure. So finally, this is what I discovered that works:

QB online:

Click New

Click Bill

In Category details enter a one-liner with the Description as the Supplier Bill Number. Then enter the total bill amount as a negative amount.

Now, in Item details, enter all the products/services for the invoice as the actual amounts.

Make the products in item details Billable, so that the Project can see those expenditures and they can be taken into account when billing the Customer for the Project.

Save and Close, and, voila! Balance is 0 and status is Paid, and you have a record of the billable items, and a record of the Bill.

Hoooray!

Just to add:

Inside the Bill in Item Details the Account for my Products (which I selected when creating my Products) is the same as the Account I select in Category Details. If these differ, you will have to add the products in Category Detail line for line, not just a single one-liner with the Total Bill amount.

Also:

I add a note in Memo to give the past Date that payment of the Bill actually went off the bank account. Plus I leave a message to the Accountant in Memo giving the VAT amount to take into consideration for the VAT output recon. 

I know this is an old thread but I've been using this a work around for several transactions every month.  One thing QB does after following these steps is create a zero dollar transaction in the Check Register with a Memo: "Quickbooks generated zero amount transaction for bill payment stub".

These transactions clutter the check Register.  If I delete them will it cause a problem? PLease advise.

Thank you

It's nice to see you here in the Community, @SallyA1. I'm here to provide details on how you can remove the zero-dollar transaction you see in the check register.

I appreciate you sharing details about your concern. Let me discuss some info about deleting the zero-dollar transaction. 

Before performing the process, I recommend reviewing if there's a transaction attached to that zero-dollar entry. To do so, simply press the Ctrl + H keys on your keyboard. If none, create a backup copy of your company file first before deleting the entry. This is to ensure you have the original data that you can restore in case of accidental data loss or damage. 

Additionally, I've added this helpful resource that you can use as a guide in making sure that your account balance matches your real-life bank statement: Learn the reconcile workflow in QuickBooks.

Let me know how this goes. I'd be glad to hear any updates about this. If you have further questions about managing transactions in QuickBooks, please don't hesitate to post again here. I'm always willing to lend a hand to ensure your success. Have a great week ahead. 

I would not delete or void them.  It does this as a way to connect the check to the invoice. 

After applying the credit in an open invoice with the same amount it become zero.  What is next, since it is zero nothing to print check?  I want to see how it look in the system.  Please help.

I have the same problem.  I created a JE to pay the outstanding bill - this was paid through credit card.  The aging report are showing both the open bill and JE.  What will I do to offset them.  Please help.

Hi there, @Jackson68.

You can offset an outstanding bill by applying the Journal Entry to the Bill. Let  me show you how. 

1. Open the open Bill.

2. Select Pay Bills.

3. Click on Set credits.

4. Hit Done.

5. Click on Pay Selected Bills.

For additional insights, you may also check out the article about how to pay bills for vendors through direct deposit: Pay bills for vendors through Direct Deposit.

Feel free to reach out to me if you have additional questions about linking bills to your Journal entries. I'll be sure to answer them for you.

After I hit 'Done, what next?  The amount of the bill and JE are the same - wash out each other become zero. When I hit Done, it went to "Pay Selected Bill' - I don't need to print check.  What will I do after hitting 'Done.

Hi Abegail:

After I hit 'Done, what next?  The amount of the bill and JE are the same - wash out each other become zero. When I hit Done, it went to "Pay Selected Bill' - I don't need to print check.  What will I do after hitting 'Done.

Hi Abegail:

What I did; 'Pay Bill, selected the Bill to Pay, hit 'Set Credit, hit Done.  What next?  Because, it went to Pay Selected Bill (which is, I don't need to print check, this is zero balance).  What will I do, please help.