QBO account recently transferred from desktop. How to apply AmEx payment in review to multiple bills in vendor credit account so account shows paid bills?

It looks like the bill payments are unlinked, Usersmithju501. Let me help you fix it.

First, let's check if the vendor has credits. Then, we'll apply it to the open bill. Here's how:

1. Click Expenses.
2. Go to the Vendors tab.
3. Select the vendor. 

If there are credits, let's apply them to the bill to close it. Here's how:

1. Click on the New or  Plus sign (+) button, then choose Check.
2. Select the vendor.
3. Under Add to Check, add the Bill and Vendor Credit.
4. Click Save and close. 

However, if there are no credits, you'll have to pay the bills manually. 

Get back to this thread if you have other questions. We'll reply as soon as we can.

Thanks for getting back to me! I got to the second step 2 and am stuck on a couple of things:

- There are indeed credits in the account - maybe 50 or 60 of them. This account goes back to 2016. So there are over 1600 separate line items.

- The options I'm seeing are payee (I selected the vendor here) and Bank account. I am trying to pay off the most recent set of bills with an AmEx payment that was recently downloaded and is still in review.  If I select "checking" or "savings" or "cash on hand" (my  only options, currently) won't it debit that account for the payment amount?

- I think at the start of the new year we will begin a new account for this vendor as a credit card account. That way we can transfer payments from AmEx account to the total vendor balance.  That seemed to work nicely for another similar vendor that we have set up. Right now there doesn't seem to be a way to do that in QBO (but maybe I'm missing something?)

- Finally, given all of the above, what is the best way to handle this account through year end, given its current state? How do we clean it up for reports? (probably focusing on the past year or two)

Thanks again for any/all advice!

I appreciate the details you've shared here, @usersmithju501.

Allow me to share some details about matching the vendor credit and the bills.

When matching these two (Bills and Vendor Credits) recent transactions using the Check transaction, you'll not be able to see a notification to match it in the For Review tab.

If you want to match the Bill to the transaction in the For Review tab, you'll only have to create a Pay Bill transaction. This way, QuickBooks will be able to detect that this is matching with the transaction in the For Review tab. There's no need to create a Check transaction. This is how it looks like on the Banking page:

Also, you can create a Journal Entry transaction if you want to track and match your vendors' previous transactions way back in 2016.

Regarding the statement you've mentioned about creating a Vendor's account as a Credit Card Account, I'd suggest contacting your accountant. This is to avoid getting errors or issues for the year-end tasks.

I've added this article to know more about handling vendor's transactions in QuickBooks Online: What is the difference between bills, checks, and expenses?

You may consider checking this reference to help you with your year-end tasks in QuickBooks: QuickBooks Online year-end guide and checklist.

Let me know in the comment section if you have other questions. I'd be happy to lend a helping hand. Take care.

Thanks so much for the additional insight. I am still a bit stuck, though. The match will not work because we are paying off an entire month of bills with the AmEx payment - maybe 40 or more individual bills. With desktop, we would just apply the AmEx payment to the vendor account, and end up with a zero balance, as it cancelled out all of the vendor invoices that month. That same process does not seem to be possible with QBO.  So I'm just not sure how to proceed.

And thanks for the tip to check with our accountant about switching the type of account for next year. We will definitely connect with them about that.

Hi usersmithju501!

Let me join this thread so I can share some details on how to handle these bills.

We can still pay all open bills in QuickBooks Online at once. However, this applies to your future transactions.

Click the +New button and select Pay bills. From the Payment account drop-down, select the account you pay the bills from. Select all the bills you want to make a payment, then Save and close.

In addition, you can follow the steps shared by Kristine Mae. There are credits on the account already that need to be applied to the open bills so we can close them. 

You can check these links for more details:

• Enter a credit from a vendor
• What to expect when you switch from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online

Let me know if you need more help with this by leaving a comment again. Take care!

Thank you for the additional info! I believe I understand now how future bills can be handled.  Let me know if this is correct: as soon as we intend to pay that month's bills from the vendor account, I would: Click the +New button and select Pay bills. From the Payment account drop-down, select AmEx. Select all the bills you want to make a payment, then Save and close.  I assume this would then automatically put a debit entry in our AmEx account which would then match for review when info was downloaded from AmEx.  Is this correct?

So with regard to the previous entries and Kristine Mae's instructions. Along the side of the screen there are over a thousand line items for the past 5 years, in date order, with credits separated out from bills. I suspect my task is to select one of the credits, and select all of the corresponding bills.  Is there a way to filter for dates or amounts when selecting? Just wondering the best way to approach this task, as this seems like it's going to be a massive undertaking, with great potential for error (e.g. clicking or not clicking a bill by mistake then it won't balance).  

Also with regard to the previous instructions, - The options I'm seeing are payee (I selected the vendor here) and Bank account. If I select "checking" or "savings" or "cash on hand" (my  only options, currently) won't it debit that account for the payment amount?  Or do the two balance out since there will be bills and a credit for the same amount? (just wondering what the check register will look like after I do all of these).

Thank you again for all of your advice!

Thanks for getting back in here, @usersmithju501.

You're right. Once you record a bill payment, it will put a debit entry into your AmEx account. 

For your second concern, when you add a bill and a credit to a vendor, you have the option to filter the date. See the screenshot below.

In creating checks select the account the check withdraws money from. This way it can debit your payment account.

You may also check this article for additional info about bill payment in QuickBooks Online: Enter bills and record bill payments in QuickBooks Online.

Please let me know if you need some clarification. I'll be glad to help you as soon as I can. Have a pleasant day.

Hi.

Thanks for the additional info. Good to know about the debit entry in AmEx (which I assume can be matched later when the info downloads from AmEx).

With regard to creating checks: The vendor account bills are and were always paid with AmEx, so we don't actually pay those bills with any of the accounts that are available in the dropdown (checking, savings, cash on hand).   Hence my confusion, and question about what the checking account check register will look like if I start to match up all of those old bills to the old payments using "check."

Thank you again for the help!

Thank you for following up with us, @usersmithju501.

Before creating checks, you need to set up the Amex account from the Chart of Accounts. This way, you can put the transaction/s to the correct register. I'm here to show you how.

1. Open your QuickBooks Online account, then click on Chart of accounts under Account and settings.
2. Select New, then set the Account and Details Types.
3. Enter the name of the account.
4. Tap on the Save and Close button.

From the Check window, pick the account created under the Bank Account drop-down arrow.

For additional tips about tracking bills and recording payments in QuickBooks Online, you can open this article.

Aside from that, I would also recommend checking out the different topics from our help articles as your guides while working with QuickBooks in the future. Here's the link: Find QuickBooks help articles, Community discussions with other QuickBooks users, video tutorials, a....

Please let me know if you need further assistance with this. I'm determined to get this fixed for you. Wishing you a good one!

Thank you for posting the detailed screen shots.  Unfortunately I am still confused.  We do already have an account for AmEx, but it is a credit card account.  Are you saying we should create a new account that is categorized as a "bank" for our AmEx credit card?  If so, do we use both AmEx accounts for different types of transactions? And are they linked somehow?

Thanks again in advance for the advice.

Yes, that is right, usersmithju501.

You'll have to create a bank account type for AmEx instead of credit card. With that said, you'll have categorize or create the transaction under the correct account. This would help you manage your transactions and get the correct data for each account. You can follow the steps provided on the earlier responses for details.

When dealing with credit cards, you might also find this article helpful: Record your payments to credit cards.

Other necessary articles were already provided on the earlier responses. You can browse them for additional information.

Let us know how this goes so we can further assist you.