How do I select the A/P account used when entering bills?

There is one a/p account and it is the default.  Though QB will allow you to create other a/p accounts QBO will not allow you to use them

QB works on names, think of the name as the sub account of the a/p account, everything is segregated by name, so there is really no reason to have more than one a/p account

Hey there, @jeff56. Glad to see you back here in the Community.

I'm happy to provide some insight on your Accounts Payable question. As @Rustler mentioned above, while you can create multiple Accounts Payable accounts in your Chart of Accounts, QuickBooks Online only uses the initially setup account for tracking bills. For this reason, the general recommendation is to maintain one Accounts Payable (A/P) account.

If you need to separate your Accounts Payable accounts, I recommend checking out the suggestions listed here: How to group Accounts Receivable or Accounts Payable account types

Please touch base with us here if there's anything else you need, I'm determined to ensure your success. Hope you have a great week ahead!

Oh, I've got a weird one!  Starting in Oct 2020, out of the blue, I started getting transactions in a Sales Tax account(!) that somehow became associated with Bills and A/P. Can I safely change the details of the Account from A/P > A/P to Current Liab > Sales Tax or am I walking into a buzz saw?

Thanks for joining this thread, Bill B.
 

To determine if you'll need to change an account's account/detail types, I'd recommend working with an accounting professional. They'll also be able to confirm what you can change them to in the event that an update's required.
 

If you're in need of one, there's an awesome tool on our website called Find an Accountant. All ProAdvisors listed there are QuickBooks-certified and able to provide helpful insights for driving your business's success.
 

Here's how it works:

1. Go to our Find an Accountant page.
2. In your Find an expert in section, choose what you're looking for, then use the search field to enter a City or ZIP code.
3. Hit Search.
   
4. Browse through the results and find one that works best for your business. You can click on each ProAdvisor's profile to learn more information about them.

Once you've found an accounting professional, they can be contacted through their Send a message form:

1. Use the available text box to introduce yourself. Be sure to include details about the services you're looking for.
   
2. Enter your appropriate info in the Your name, Your email, and Your phone number (optional) fields.
   
3. Click Send message.
   

You'll additionally be able to find many detailed resources about using QuickBooks in our help article archives.
 

I'll be here to assist if there's any additional questions. Have a wonderful day!

Hi. Did you find a way around this? it is very wierd that you can not change the targeted Accounts Payable account for a bill...

Hello, All my bills are going to Corporate tax payable account by default, instead of account payable. How do i change this?

I can show you how to change the account, @L Josline.

When you create a bill, that'll be posted to the default Accounts Payable (A/P) account in your QuickBooks Online. The default A/P are the ones that were created when you set up your company in QuickBooks Online (QBO). 

The most possible reason why the bills were posted to the Corporate tax payable account is that the default A/P was renamed. You can check or change this by going to your Chart of Accounts.

Let me show you how:

1. Go to the Gear icon and select Chart of Accounts. 
2. Locate this Corporate tax payable account  and click Edit under the Action column.
3. Change the Name and Detail Type to Accounts Payable (or same as the default account). 
4. Click Save, then select Yes to confirm the changes.

You can check this article for more information on how to add or edit chart of accounts: Add an account to your chart of accounts in QuickBooks Online.

See this article for more information on how to enter bills and record bill payments in QuickBooks Online. 

Let us know how this goes so we can further assist you in correcting your Accounts Payable data. I’ll be here to help. Take care!

I realize I'm necro-ing an old post, but QBO is frustrating me so think of this as a vent.

I would like to use a liability account such as Accrued Interest Payable to track interest expense on an accrual basis, but the client sometimes wants to see a cash basis report for internal viewing. Unfortunately, QBO does not track any liability accounts when switching between accrual and cash basis, it only tracks A/R and A/P transactions. Solution? Convert the Accrued Interest Payable account to an Accounts Payable type so that QBO will see it as accounts payable, but to you it will be a separate liability account (as it should be). The problem is that unless I am able to create a BILL under that second accounts payable account (which is being utilized as a Accrued Interest Payable account), I am unable to use this as a work around.

You are right, we shouldn't have to create more than one A/P account, but QuickBooks also should make it easy to switch to cash basis - as it stands currently, switching to cash basis does not affect any other accrued liability accounts. Sadly, it looks like even designating it as an A/P account is useless. I can create Journal Entries and then apply payments to said journal entries, but QuickBooks still does not recognize when switching to cash basis. Really frustrating.

We need to be able to select an AP account for our bills. We have bills that are for corporate payables and others that are for Subconsultants/ODC's and we need to track them separately for bank reporting purposes. They are looked at differently because the sub/ODC's payables are paid when paid (they are passed through our AR invoices).  This feature was available in QB Enterprise but not available in QBO.  Is this something that we may see in QBO?  It is on the roadmap?  

Greetings, @MDiaz1! Thank you for becoming a part of our Community. I am happy to share with you some valuable insights regarding the A/P account in QBO. I also appreciate the suggestions you have given us to consider for future options.

As noted in this thread, QuickBooks Online automatically posts bills to the default Accounts Payable account. However, I understand that using different Accounts Payable for your bills could be beneficial to your business.

For now, I suggest submitting your request directly to our product engineers via feedback. Sharing your desired features and options is how our engineers search for new product updates.

Let me show you how.

1. Go to the Gear icon.
2. Select Feedback.
3. Enter your comments or product suggestions. 
4. Then select Next to submit feedback.
   

You can also check this link for more details: How do I submit feedback?

If you need to separate your Accounts Payable accounts, I recommend checking out the suggestions listed here: How to group Accounts Receivable or Accounts Payable account types.

If you require further assistance with assigning bills to A/P accounts or have any other QuickBooks-related concerns, feel free to reach out to me. I am happy to provide the best help possible. Take good care.