Overview 

A Payable represents a vendor invoice for goods or services consumed by the business and usually requires payment in a specified timeframe (payment terms). It is used to record the business’ liabilities (debts) to its vendors, and the expense that those items incur. A negative Payable is used as a vendor credit memo to represent a vendor discount or refund. 

Note: For information about Header Level Posting (HLP), refer to the Payable Header Level Posting article.

Do you want to:

• Create a Payable
• Create Payable Lines
• Clone a Payable

Create a Payable

1. 1. Navigate to Accounting Home and click the Create Entries tab. Then, under the Expenses menu, click Payables.
   2. Click New.
      
   3. Enter one of the following required fields:
      Note: When using Person Accounts, either the Vendor or Contact field can be populated.  However, if you would like the Vendor information to flow through to the Payee field, only the Contact field should be populated. 
      • Vendor (Account)
      • Contact
      • Employee (Salesforce User)
        
   4. Populate other required fields:
      • Payee Reference - This is typically the vendor invoice number. The system will not allow the creation of a Payable to the same vendor with a duplicate payee reference.
      • Issue Date - This is the vendor’s issue date, and also the date that drives the posting of the expense to the related accounting period.
      • Proprietary Payable Number (not required but very useful) - When populated, it will print under Our Reference in the remittance section of the check. If not populated, Our Reference will show the Salesforce auto-generated number.
        
      • Posting Status -  Determines the status of the payable. The default status is “Approved,” which indicates the Payable is finalized and can be posted.
        Best Practice: It is recommended to have the daily Scheduled Post job created, which provides the ability for all Payables that have a posting status of “Approved” to automatically post based upon the Next Run Date and Preferred Start Time. 
        
   5. Review and/or modify optional fields:
      • Payment Services– this section will display if you have the AP Automation features. For more information, refer to the AP Automation Overview article.
        
        • • Payment Services Eligible – if you have AP Automation, this checkbox will be selected if the business entity that is related to the selected Ledger has been enrolled in Payment Services.
            Note: This checkbox cannot be manually selected.
      • On Hold – select this checkbox to indicate the Payable is on hold and should not be paid. For more information, refer to the On Hold Payables article.
      • Early Pay Date – Click the Calendar icon to select a date for early payment. Typically, this is a date that is earlier than the scheduled or agreed-upon date. A discount might be offered if payment is made by this early payment date.
        Note: If there are discount terms on the Vendor record, this is calculated as the Issue Date + Payable Discount Days Due.
      • Payment terms - Upon creation of a payable, if the Payable Days Due field is populating on the related payee account, then the Due Date will be the issue date plus that number. This automation only happens when a Payable is created and not when it is edited.
      • Discount Amount - If the related Payee has early payment discount terms set up on their account, then this will flow through to the Discount Amount field. If this Payable is paid within these terms, then the discount will be applied and the difference will flow through to the discount GL Account that is set up in the Default GL Accounts screen.
      • Due Date - Upon creation, the Due Date field on the Payable will populate based upon the formula for the Due Date, which is calculated as: Issue Date (from Payable) + Payable Days Due [f this field was populated on the Account, the Contact or Employee (User)] = Due Date.  
        Note: Upon saving, if the Payable Days Due field was not populated, the Due Date on the Payable will be the same as the Issue Date.
        
      • Accounting Period - Defaults to the period related to the issue date.
        
   6. Click Save.

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Create Payable Lines

The Advanced Line Manager (ALM) functionality that includes the data grid with expand/collapse drawer capabilities is available when creating a Payable Line.

Note: For information about the Advanced Line Manager, including functionality, refer to the Advanced Line Manager article. 

1. If you already have a Payable displayed, continue with step 2. Otherwise, navigate to Accounting Home and click the Create Entries tab. Then, under the Expenses menu, click Payables. Do the following:
   1. Select a list view (other than the Recently Viewed list view).
   2. Select a desired Payable. Then, continue with step 2.
2. The initial row displays in the expand/collapse data grid. The Date field automatically populates from the Issue Date on the Payable record.
   
   Note: Click here to view the above image in full screen. 
   
   Note: If an amount is entered in the Total field, after you click Save, this same amount will automatically populate in the Unit Cost field and the Quantity will be 1. If the Total field is left blank, the Unit Cost is required.
   
   The amount that is entered in the Unit Cost field multiplied by the Quantity plus the Tax Amount will determine the Total. If the Total equals this equation (Quantity x Unit Cost + Tax Amount  = Total), then the Unit Cost and the Total can be entered simultaneously. If the Quantity field is blank, upon saving, a Quantity of one will auto-populate for the line.
   
   Best Practice: To ensure that the correct Quantity and Unit Cost are reflected on the Payable, it is strongly recommended that the Quantity and Unit Cost be entered on the Payable Line. If only the Total amount is entered, the Quantity will always be set to 1 once Save is clicked.
   
   Note: If an Expense GL Account has been included on the customer Account record or a Product was entered, which includes an Expense GL Account, this GL Account will automatically populate in the Expense GL Account field on the Payable Line. Otherwise, the Expense GL Account is a required field.
   
   
3. (Optional) Complete the following fields, as necessary.
   
   1. Product
   2. Quantity
   3. Total
   4. Tax Amount - populates automatically upon saving the row. However, you can click the Pencil icon to modify the Tax Amount, if necessary.
   5. Tax Group - click the Lookup icon to search for and select the Tax Group.
      Note: If Header Level Posting (HLP) is enabled and using AS Native Tax calculation, the Tax Group field is available. For information about Tax Groups, refer to the Set up AS Native Tax article.
   6. Project/Project Task
      Note: If a Project is selected, a Project Task must also be selected.
      
   7. GL Variable 1-4
4. (Optional) If you have more than one invoice attachment, click Set File as Default to select one of the invoices as the default to automatically display when you open the Payable record.
   Note: If only one file is attached, it will automatically display as the Default File.
5. Click Save.
6. (Optional) Click Add Row to include an additional row(s).

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With Header Level Posting (HLP) enabled, if tax was calculated, the Tax Amount displays as part of the Payable Line.



With Line Level Posting (LLP) enabled, if tax was calculated, the Tax Amount displays as a separate Payable Line.



Note: If utilizing an approval process, the Posting Status must be “Approved” in order to post.

Note: If the daily Scheduled Post job has been created, all Payables that have a posting status of “Approved” will automatically post based upon the Next Run Date and Preferred Start Time.

Clone a Payable

The Payable Clone w/Lines feature provides an efficient way to duplicate a previously entered Payable.

Before cloning a Payable, you might want to check the fields that will be included on the clone by reviewing the Payable fields for Clone and Payable Line fields for Clone field sets to make sure only the fields that you want will be included. This allows you to have more control over exactly which fields will be included on the cloned version of a Payable. For more information, refer to the Edit a Field Set article, where you can edit a field set to add or remove a field(s).

Note: If you remove a required field from a field set, when the Payable is cloned, all required fields will still be included on the clone (even if they were removed from the field set).

1. Navigate to Accounting Home and click the Create Entries tab. Then, under the Expenses menu, click Payables.
2. Select a list view, such as All. Typically, you want to select a list view other than Recently Viewed.
3. Click the Payable Name that you want to clone.
   
4. Click Clone w/ Lines. The Clone Payable intermediate screen displays.
   
5. Modify the Issue Date, if necessary.
   Note: If the Payable was made to a Contact or Employee, in addition to the Issue Date, the Due Date displays. The Due Date is calculated using the same length of the payment term as the original Payable. You can modify the Due Date, if necessary.
   
   
   
   
6. Click Clone Payable.
   
7. On the Payable Edit dialog box, update the Payable information as needed.  
8. Click Save.

Notes: 

• For every Payable posted, the GL Account credited will always be the system AP Control GL Account entered in the Default GL Accounts. Once transactions are posted to this AP Control GL Account, it cannot be changed in Default GL Accounts unless those transactions are deleted.
• Payable Line limits are documented in the Post/Unpost Limits article. If you have the Large Data Optimizer feature enabled, refer to the Large Data Optimizer article for line limit information.
• Payables can be set up to use Salesforce Approvals.

 

Related Articles

• Zero-Dollar Payable and Zero-Amount Payable
• Apply a Credit Memo to a Payable
• On Hold Payables

 

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