Bill a Purchase Order to QuickBooks Online
Bookkeep turns purchase order receipts into bills in QuickBooks Online (QBO), the vendor invoice that hits accounts payable. Billing is manual: nothing reaches QBO until you create the bill, and you choose which receipts it covers. Bills post to QuickBooks Online only.
When a purchase order can be billed
A purchase order can be billed once it is Partial, Received, or Committed and has at least one committed receipt that no posted bill covers. The order does not have to be fully received. When a supplier ships in two parts, bill the first shipment as soon as its receipt commits and bill the second when that invoice arrives.
A receipt is billable once it is committed, meaning Shopify inventory has been updated for it. Draft receipts and receipts still syncing cannot be billed, and a receipt can be on only one bill.
You also need a QuickBooks Online connection on the organization. If two accounting platforms are connected, the post fails with a message to contact support.
Status and bill status
A purchase order carries two statuses:
- Status (Draft, Ordered, Partial, Received, Committed) answers whether the goods have arrived.
- Bill status (Unbilled, Partially billed, Billed) answers whether you have recorded what you owe for them.
Receiving never bills anything and billing never changes what you have received. Bookkeep derives bill status from the order's committed receipts:
| Bill status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Unbilled | No committed receipt has a posted bill. |
| Partially billed | Some committed receipts have a posted bill and at least one does not. |
| Billed | Every committed receipt has a posted bill. |
Only committed receipts count, so a Partial order whose one shipment has been billed shows Billed. When the next shipment is received and commits, the order drops back to Partially billed until that receipt is billed too. Bill status is recalculated whenever a bill posts, a receipt commits, or a receipt is voided. A bill that fails to post changes nothing.
Create bill is offered while the order has a committed receipt left to bill. Once bill status reaches Billed, the action goes away until another receipt commits.
Create a bill
Open the create-bill screen from any of these places:
- Purchase order list. Click the bill icon beside the PO number. It appears only when the order can be billed.
- Purchase order page. Click Create bill above the Receipts card.
- Bills list. From Purchase Orders, click Bills, then the purchase order, then Create bill.
The header names the platform and company file the bill will post to, and shows the order's supplier, note to supplier, payment terms, tracking number, supplier invoice number, and order reference for you to copy from.
Select receipts
Click Select receipts. The picker lists every submitted receipt on the order with its date, who received it, total, status, and a View button for its documents. Only committed receipts with no posted bill can be checked. A receipt that is still syncing, voided, or already billed stays visible but disabled. Draft receipts are not listed; submit them on the purchase order first. Select all checks every billable receipt.
Fill in the bill details
The Bill details card holds the header fields and the category defaults.
Vendor. The QBO vendor the bill posts to. Type to search. Inactive vendors are hidden until you check Include inactive vendors.
Bill number. Required. QuickBooks accepts up to 21 characters.
Bill date. Defaults to today and cannot be in the future.
Due date. On or after the bill date.
Default Goods category and Default Landed cost category. The expense accounts applied to every goods line and every landed cost line. Fill blanks only leaves lines you already set by hand alone; Overwrite all replaces them.
Refresh vendors and Refresh accounts at the top of the page re-pull the vendor list and chart of accounts from QuickBooks. Use them when a vendor or account you just added in QBO is not in the pickers. Refreshing leaves the form as you filled it.
Review the line items
Selecting receipts builds the lines:
- Goods lines. One per received product line, described as Product - Variant | Qty: n | Unit Cost: n, valued at quantity received times unit cost received. These carry the item's own cost only.
- Landed cost line. One per receipt that has landed cost fees or discounts, named Receipt name - Landed costs, for the net of those fees. See Configure Fees and Discounts.
Each line shows its receipt date and links to its receipt. Every line needs a category; change any single line's category in the table and only that line changes. Click Add manual line to add a charge from the supplier's invoice that is not on any receipt, with its own description, amount, and account.
Memo. Optional. It lands in the bill's private note in QuickBooks after a Bookkeep reference.
Choose attachments
The Attachments list starts with the purchase order PDF, a PDF of each selected receipt, and every document uploaded to those receipts (PDF, JPG, or PNG). Download any of them to check, and remove the ones you do not want on the QuickBooks bill. What remains is attached to the bill in QBO under the same names.
Create the bill
The Total panel sums the lines. Once the vendor, bill number, both dates, at least one receipt, and a category on every line are set, click Create bill. Bookkeep posts to QuickBooks immediately and opens the bill's page. The order's bill status moves to Partially billed or Billed.
Review bills
From Purchase Orders, click Bills. The list shows every Partial, Received, and Committed purchase order with its status, bill status, supplier, destination, totals, dates, payment terms, tracking number, and note to supplier. Tabs filter to All, Billed, Partially billed, or Unbilled, and the search box matches PO number, reference, SKU, or product title.
Click a purchase order to open its bills: bill number, status, vendor, total, bill date, due date, posted date, how many receipts each covers, and a View in QuickBooks link for posted bills. Click a bill number for its detail page, where View Bill opens the same record in QBO.
A bill is in one of two states:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Posted | Live in QuickBooks. Read-only in Bookkeep. |
| Post failed | QuickBooks rejected it. The error shows on the bill, and you can edit and retry it. |
To change a posted bill, edit it in QuickBooks. If the receipt itself needs to be voided and replaced, also delete or void the original bill in QuickBooks, receive again in Bookkeep, and bill the new receipt. Voiding a receipt does not remove its posted QuickBooks bill. See Fix a Receipt: Voids and Cost Corrections.
If the post fails
An expired connection, a vendor or account deleted on the QBO side, or a bill number QuickBooks rejects leaves the bill at Post failed with QuickBooks' message in a banner at the top. Its receipts do not count as billed and the order's bill status is unchanged.
A failed bill is editable. Correct the vendor, dates, bill number, categories, manual lines, or attachments, then click Retry bill. If a vendor or account was the problem, fix it in QuickBooks first and use Refresh vendors or Refresh accounts so the corrected entry is selectable. The receipts stay attached to the failed bill, so retry it rather than starting a new bill for the same receipts.