Features
Bills are the purchase side of the same document editor you raise invoices in. Enter what a vendor has billed you, give it a due date, and with accounting switched on the total posts to Accounts Payable and to the expense category you picked. Convert an approved purchase order and the vendor, the lines and the totals come with it.
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What is inside
Bills run the purchase side from end to end: entering what a vendor charged you, posting it to Accounts Payable and the expense category you picked, recording what you paid against it, and showing the vendor their own read-only copy.
From scratch or from a PO
A bill is the mirror of an invoice, built in the same document editor with the same line items, taxes and discounts. Where the Customer picker sits on an invoice, a bill has a Vendor picker, and the document prints BILL and Bill Total. Bill numbers run on their own B series, and you can save a bill before you have picked a vendor.
Mark a purchase order Approved and you can convert it into a bill. The vendor, the line items and the totals come across, and the new bill gets a fresh B-series number, today's bill date, a due date one month out and a balance equal to the total. Conversion is disabled on any other status. The order itself stays on its own list at Approved, so check the Bills list before converting it twice.
One save, both sides
Saving a bill can post its total to the chart of accounts and the general ledger with no export step. Accounting is a switch on the bill's Accounting tab, carried over from your business profile. With it on, the bill reaches Accounts Payable under Current Liabilities and the account named in the Expense Category field. Leave that field alone and it uses Cost of Goods Sold.
The posting is rewritten rather than appended. Ledger rows are keyed by account, bill and side, so correcting a bill and saving it again updates the rows that already exist instead of stacking a second set on top. From there the figures behave like any other posted entry: they show in the general ledger, on the profit and loss statement, and in the reports you run at period end.
Recorded, not charged
Payments to vendors go on the Payments Made screen rather than on the bill. Pick the vendor, pick one of that vendor's open bills, and the amount pre-fills from what is still owed. Each payment carries a method, a date, a reference number and notes. Saving reduces the balance, moves the bill to Partial or Paid, and runs as one locked transaction so a double-click cannot pay it twice.
A vendor record holds contact details and portal settings rather than a document history. Invite a vendor and they get a read-only portal with up to four lists: bills, purchase orders, vendor credits and the payments you have made. You choose per vendor which of the four appear. Bills show there once they have been sent or paid, never as drafts, and every row opens or downloads as a PDF.
Built in
Bills sit next to purchase orders, vendor credits, vendors and payments made, so a cost you enter once carries through to the ledger, your stock on hand and the reports you run at period end.
A settlement pair clears the payable against Cash under Cash & Bank, or against the account attached to the gateway named on the payment.
The applied amount caps at what the bill owes. Anything beyond it is held against Cash and Prepaid Expenses, and shows in the list as Unused Amount.
Raise a credit from the bill and either apply it against that bill or record it as a cash refund. Applying it runs as one locked transaction.
The badge is derived, not typed. A bill you have already sent turns Overdue on its own once its due date passes; a draft stays Draft.
With inventory tracking on, saving a bill raises stock on hand for tracked items. A purchase order records the order, so stock waits for the bill.
Set the due date on the bill directly, or pick a payment term and let the due date recalculate from it.
The same repeater as everywhere else: item, quantity, rate, tax and discount per line, dragged into order, drawn from your saved items.
Bills are emailed from the Bills list, not the editor, which carries no Send button. The Send action is not offered while a bill is a draft.
When the payment currency differs from your accounting currency, the converted amount is recomputed on the server from the rate rather than taken from the browser.
A bill can be deleted only while it is unpaid. Once a payment has landed against it, the delete action is gone from the row.
The payment method on a vendor payment is a label. Gateways like Stripe, PayPal and Razorpay collect from your customers; they do not pay your suppliers.
A fee that arrives on a fixed date every month is better recorded as a recurring expense than entered as a bill each time.
Questions
Yes. Invoice Crowd handles accounts payable through Bills, the purchase-side mirror of an invoice. A bill records what a vendor has charged you, with line items, taxes, a bill date and a due date, and posts the total to Accounts Payable under Current Liabilities. Purchase orders, vendor credits, vendors and vendor payments sit alongside bills on the purchase side of the app.
Mark the purchase order Approved, then use Convert to bill. Conversion copies the order into a new bill with a fresh B-series number, today's bill date, a due date one month out and a balance equal to the total, and links the bill back to the order it came from. The convert action is disabled on any purchase order not yet at Approved status.
With accounting switched on for the bill, saving it puts the total on Accounts Payable, under Current Liabilities, and the same amount on the account named in the Expense Category field on the bill's Accounting tab. When no account is chosen there, bills default to Cost of Goods Sold. Marking the bill paid posts a settlement pair that clears the payable against Cash, under Cash & Bank, or against the account attached to the gateway named on the payment.
No. Invoice Crowd records vendor payments rather than making them. The Payments Made screen captures the vendor, the bill, the amount, the date, a reference number and a receipt, then reduces the bill's balance and updates its status. The payment method is a label for your own records; no bank transfer or card charge is sent to the vendor from the app.
No. Deleting a bill is only offered while its payment status is unpaid. Once a payment has been recorded against a bill, the delete action disappears from the row, which keeps the ledger entries and the payment history intact. A bill that was entered in error and already paid should be corrected through a vendor credit rather than removed.
Only if you invite that vendor into the vendor portal, and only as a read-only view. The portal shows up to four lists (bills, purchase orders, vendor credits and the payments you have made) and you decide per vendor which of the four appear. Bills show there once they have been sent or paid rather than while they are drafts, and each one can be opened or downloaded as a PDF. Vendors cannot edit anything and there is no payment collection in the vendor portal.
Bills are not included in the Lifetime Free tier. Opening the Bills list from that tier redirects to billing. Bills, purchase orders, vendor credits and payments made are available on eligible paid plans; check the pricing page for the current plan details and trial terms.
Enter what a vendor has billed you, or convert the purchase order behind it, and the total lands on Accounts Payable and the expense category you chose in the same save.
