Bills

A bill in Ambivo Books is an invoice from a vendor — something you owe and need to pay. Recording bills as they arrive (rather than when you pay them) gives you accurate Accounts Payable, lets you see what is coming due, and keeps your Income Statement reflecting expenses in the right period.

Where Bills Live

Like invoices, bills are split between the master record (Core Ambivo API) and the accounting side (Books ledger). The master record holds the vendor, line items, dates, and stage; the Books side holds the journal entry that debits Expense / Asset and credits Accounts Payable.

The two are kept in sync — when a bill changes stage in the master (e.g., from Pending to Paid), Books updates its accounting view. The Sync action you may see on bill detail forces this resync explicitly.

Getting There

• Click Bills in the left sidebar
• The list appears with search, stage filter, and pagination

Bill Stages

A bill moves through stages from arrival to payment:

Creating a Bill

Steps

• From Bills, click + New
• Pick the Vendor — Books pre-fills their default expense account, A/P account, and tax code
• Set the Bill date (when the vendor issued the bill) and Due date
• Enter a Bill reference (the vendor's invoice number — useful for matching when they ask)
• Pick the Currency (defaults to entity base currency)
• Add line items: Pick a Product (or type a free description); Set Quantity and Unit price; Pick the Expense account (pre-filled from product or vendor default); Pick a Tax code if applicable; toggle Tax inclusive if needed
• Review the Subtotal, Tax, and Total
• Add a Memo for any notes
• Click Save as Draft or Save and Post

What Happens Next

• Draft — Saved but no ledger entry yet. Editable.
• Posted — Bill stage moves to Pending, journal entry posts: debit Expense (or Asset, for inventory/fixed-asset purchases), credit Accounts Payable, possibly debit Tax Receivable.

Recording a Payment

When you pay a bill — by cheque, ACH, wire, or Wise:

• Open the bill
• Click Record Payment
• Pick: Payment date; Amount (full or partial); Payment method — see below; Source bank account (the account funding the payment); Reference (cheque number, wire reference)
• Click Save

What Happens Next

Books creates a Supplier Payment transaction (debit A/P, credit Bank), posts it, and assigns it to the bill. The bill stage updates:

• Full payment → Paid
• Partial payment → stays Pending (Books does not have a "partial bill" stage in the same way as invoices)

You can record several partial payments against one bill.

Payment Methods

When recording a payment via Record Payment, the method dropdown offers:

• Bank transfer / ACH — The default for domestic payments
• Cheque (check) — Records the cheque number
• Wire — For domestic or international wires you initiate at the bank
• Credit card — For paying a vendor by company credit card
• Cash — For petty-cash payments
• Other — Free-form

For these methods, Books just records the payment — you are responsible for actually moving the money at the bank.

To pay through Wise, use the dedicated Wise payment workflow on the bill rather than the Record Payment dropdown. Wise has its own quote / authorization flow with a security step. See Transfers Sent (UG-023).

Bill Sync (API-Level)

Books and the Core API stay in step automatically — when a bill stage changes in the master, Books re-evaluates and posts (or reverses) the corresponding Supplier Bill ledger entry. The mapping is:

• Master Draft → no ledger entry
• Master Pending → Supplier Bill posted
• Master Paid → Supplier Bill posted (the historical record exists)
• Master Cancelled → existing Supplier Bill reversed via a Debit Note

The bill detail view shows the current accounting-sync state. If you ever suspect that the AP balance is wrong because of a stage change that happened externally, an administrator can trigger a resync via the API; an explicit "Sync" button is not currently surfaced in the Books frontend.

Cancelling or Voiding a Bill

If you recorded a bill in error or the vendor cancelled it, today the action available in the bill list is Delete (for bills you can still remove) and Edit (to change stage in the master record). When the master record is set to Cancelled, Books automatically posts a Debit Note that reverses the original Supplier Bill (debit A/P, credit Expense / Asset), reducing the vendor's outstanding balance. The original bill stays in the audit trail.

A dedicated one-click Void action on the bill detail page is on the roadmap.

If the bill has already been paid, you should reverse or cancel the payment first (see below), then cancel the bill.

Cancelling a Bill Payment

To reverse a payment without cancelling the bill, use the Cancel Payment action available from the payment row in the bill's activity list. Books reverses the Supplier Payment (debit Bank, credit A/P), restoring the bill's outstanding balance.

This is useful when a cheque bounced, a wire was rejected, or you marked the wrong bill as paid.

Bill Filters and Search

Use the filter bar to narrow down:

• Search — by bill number, vendor name, reference
• Stage — Draft / Pending / Processing / Paid / Cancelled
• Date range — by bill date or due date
• Vendor — show only bills from one vendor

Multi-Currency Bills

If multi-currency is enabled, you can record bills in any currency:

• Pick the currency on the bill header
• Line items are entered in that currency
• The exchange rate at the bill date is captured
• Reports show the bill translated to base currency

When you pay a foreign-currency bill — possibly from a base-currency bank account — FX gain or loss is recognized at payment time. See Multi-Currency (UG-070).

Read-Only Mode (QuickBooks Tenants)

If your tenant has QuickBooks set as the invoicing system of record, the Create / Update / Delete actions on bills are blocked. You can still browse and view historical bills. Bill creation, edits, and voids must happen in QuickBooks. See QuickBooks Migration and Read-Only Mode (UG-090).

Common Questions

Tips and Best Practices

• Enter bills the day they arrive, not the day you pay them. This is the whole point of accrual accounting.
• Use the vendor's reference number consistently. It saves arguments later.
• Set due dates correctly. AP aging is meaningless if every bill is "due on receipt".
• Use Wise for international payments rather than wire — it is far cheaper and the FX rate is transparent.
• Pay your Payment PIN forward. Set it before you have an urgent payment to send.
• Reconcile bank feeds before declaring a bill paid. It catches bounces and timing differences.

Related Guides

• UG-012 — Vendors
• UG-013 — Products and Services
• UG-023 — Transfers Sent (Wise Payouts)
• UG-031 — Bank Transactions and Reconciliation
• UG-070 — Multi-Currency
• UG-080 — Settings and Configuration
• UG-090 — QuickBooks Migration and Read-Only Mode