Choosing the right publication type ensures that your documents appear correctly in your accounting software and align with your bookkeeping practices.
QuickBooks: Bills vs Expenses
For QuickBooks users, you can publish documents as either Bills or Expenses:
Bills – Use for supplier invoices that need to be paid later, creating accounts payable entries
Expenses – Use for paid receipts and immediate expenses, creating direct expense entries
Publishing individual documents as expenses
To publish a specific document as an Expense in QuickBooks, go to Bookkeeping > Purchases > Inbox, click on the document and scroll to the QuickBooks preferences section, then click Publish as and select Expense.
Setting default preferences
To publish all future purchase documents as Expenses, go to Settings > Advanced bookkeeping > Purchases defaults, click Edit under Default QuickBooks preferences, and under Publish as, select Expense. Note that this change only affects documents uploaded after the setting is changed.
Xero: Bills vs Spend Money
For Xero users, the options are Bills or Spend Money:
Bills – For supplier invoices requiring payment, creating accounts payable.
Spend Money – For paid expenses and receipts, creating direct bank account transactions.
Choosing the right option
Use Bills/Bills for unpaid supplier invoices that need processing through accounts payable, and use Expenses/Spend Money for receipts and expenses that have already been paid.