Bill payments in the Yoke Ledger

The Yoke Ledger includes a first-class Accounts-Payable workspace for the money you owe your vendors — the payables mirror of invoicing. Enter vendor bills line by line, approve them so they post to your books automatically, receive inventory-backed lines straight into stock, record payments as you make them (including partial payments), and keep an eye on what you owe with a built-in aging report.

You'll find it under Bills in the Ledger workspace.

Entering a bill

1. Open the Ledger and go to the Bills tab.
2. Click New bill.
3. Pick a vendor (the list is drawn from your existing vendor records), or type in a name.
4. Set the receive date, due date, and payment terms (for example, Net 30).
5. Add line items — a description, quantity, and unit price for each. The line amount and the running subtotal, tax, and total update live as you type.
6. Choose the account each line posts to. An expense line points at an expense account; an inventory line points at your Inventory asset account and also names the item and the location it's received into.
7. Choose a sales-tax rate if the bill is taxable. Tax is calculated on the subtotal at a single rate and rounded to the cent.
8. Click Save draft.

A draft is fully editable — change lines, dates, the vendor, the per-line accounts, or the tax rate as many times as you like. Nothing posts to your books until you approve it.

Approving a bill

When the bill is ready, click Approve. Approving:

• Assigns the next bill number (using the prefix and starting number from your bill settings).
• Locks the bill — approved bills can no longer be edited.
• Posts a tax-aware journal entry to your books: it debits each line's account (expenses and inventory), debits Sales Tax Payable for any tax, and credits Accounts Payable for the total. Your trial balance stays in balance automatically.
• For every inventory-backed line, receives the quantity into stock at the named location — so your on-hand counts reflect the goods as soon as the bill is approved.

Posting accounts

Approving needs to know which ledger accounts to post to. Configure these once under bill settings:

• Accounts Payable — where the amount owed is recorded.
• Expense — the default account for non-inventory lines.
• Inventory — the default account for inventory-backed lines.
• Sales Tax Payable — where tax owed is held (only required when a bill has tax).
• Cash / bank — where payments are drawn from.

Each line can override its account, falling back to these defaults. An inventory line must name both an item and a location, so approving is blocked with a clear message if either is missing — your stock and your books never drift apart.

Recording payments

As you pay your vendors, record each payment against the bill:

1. Open the approved bill and click Record payment.
2. Enter the amount (defaults to the full balance due), the payment date, the method (cash, check, bank transfer, card, or other), and an optional reference.
3. Click Save.

Each payment posts its own journal entry — debit Accounts Payable, credit Cash/bank — and the bill status updates from its balance:

Partial payments are fully supported — record as many as you need until the balance reaches zero. You can't record a payment larger than the outstanding balance.

Payments form an append-only history on the bill, so the record of what was paid, when, and how is always preserved.

Voiding a bill

If a bill was approved in error, open it and click Void. Voiding posts a reversing journal entry that cleanly backs out the original posting, and backs the received quantity out of stock for any inventory lines. A bill with any recorded payments can't be voided — reverse the payments first.

The AP aging report

The Bill Aging tab shows everything you still owe, grouped by vendor and bucketed by how overdue it is:

• Current — not yet due.
• 1–30, 31–60, 61–90 — days past due.
• 90+ — over ninety days past due.

Pick an as-of date to age the balances against, and the report recalculates. Fully-paid bills drop out automatically — only outstanding balances appear. You can export to PDF or export to CSV for sharing or follow-up.

Building on it

Everything posts through the standard Yoke Ledger, so your bills, payments, and tax sit alongside the rest of your books — the trial balance, the Profit & Loss statement, and the Balance Sheet all reflect Accounts-Payable and inventory activity with no extra steps.