Pay supplier invoices

The To pay page brings together your suppliers’ invoices that are not paid yet, the most urgent first. You pay them from your e-banking, with a payment file prepared by To Bill, then you mark them as paid.

Open the list

In the menu, under Purchases, open To pay. The To pay button on the Expenses page also leads there.

• At the top, Total to pay, Overdue and Due within 7 days sum up what lies ahead, per currency.
• Each row shows the supplier, their invoice number, the Due date (in red with the number of days overdue if it has passed), the IBAN and reference, the Payment status and the Amount.
• The Paid tab, at the top right, lists the settled invoices, with their payment date.

Click a row to open the invoice and edit it.

Add a supplier invoice

1. Click Add a supplier invoice (1). The New expense page opens.

2. Drop the invoice. If it carries a QR-bill, the supplier, the IBAN, the reference, the amount and often the due date are filled in by themselves. See Receipts and automatic reading.

3. Complete the category and the VAT as for any expense. See Record an expense.

4. In the Payment section, keep Not paid yet – to pay in Paid by, then check the payment information.

   

5. Click Save. The invoice appears in To pay.

Without a QR-bill, fill in the following yourself:

Field	What to enter
Supplier IBAN	The IBAN shown on the invoice.
Due date	The date by which the invoice must be paid.
Reference	QR reference (27 digits) if the IBAN is a QR-IBAN, Creditor reference (RF…) if the invoice gives one, otherwise No reference (message).
Payment reference or Message to the supplier	The reference copied from the invoice, or a message of 140 characters at most, for example the invoice number.
Supplier invoice no., Supplier VAT no.	To find the invoice again and support the VAT deducted.
Supplier address	At least the Town and the Country: without them, the invoice cannot be paid by payment file.

A QR-IBAN needs a QR reference

An IBAN whose bank number is between 30000 and 31999 is a QR-IBAN. It only accepts payments with the invoice’s 27-digit QR reference. To Bill tells you: This IBAN is a QR-IBAN: choose “QR reference”.

The statuses

Status	What it means
To pay	The invoice is waiting to be paid.
Ordered	It is in a payment file sent to the bank, with its execution date.
Paid	It is settled, on the date shown.
Incomplete (2)	Something is missing to pay it by file. Hover over the status to see what.

An invoice is Incomplete for one of these reasons:

• The supplier IBAN is missing.
• Only CHF and EUR can be paid by file.
• The amount is missing. or The supplier name is missing.
• A QR-IBAN needs its 27-digit QR reference.
• A foreign IBAN can only be paid in EUR (SEPA).
• The supplier's town or country is missing.

Open the invoice, complete what is missing, then save.

Pay the invoices

There are two ways to pay:

• By payment file. Tick the invoices, click Payment file (pain.001), then import the file into your e-banking. The invoices change to Ordered. See Pay by payment file.
• Directly in your e-banking, for example by scanning the QR-bill with your bank’s app. Then mark the invoice as paid in To Bill.

Mark invoices as paid

1. Tick the invoices that are paid.

2. In the bar at the bottom of the screen, click Mark as paid.

3. Enter the date in Paid on and the means of payment in Paid by. If the money left a bank account, choose which one in From the bank account.

   

4. Click Mark as paid. The invoices move to the Paid tab.

If your books are kept in To Bill, the payment is posted at the same time: the debt to the supplier (2000 Accounts payable) is settled by the account chosen, for example 1020 for the bank. The message The payment is booked in the accounts (2000 → bank). confirms it.

When the bank statement arrives

The payment also appears on your statement. When you import it, To Bill recognises the invoice by its payment reference and suggests it in Accounting › Bank. If you have already marked the invoice as paid, the statement line links to that payment: it is not counted twice. See Reconcile payments.

The other way round, an invoice reconciled from the bank stays To pay or Ordered in this list: mark it as paid. To Bill sees that its payment is already posted and does not post it a second time.

Put an invoice back to pay

An invoice ordered by mistake, or marked as paid too early: tick it, then click Back to “to pay”. If its payment is already posted or reconciled with a statement line, To Bill refuses: first undo the reconciliation in Accounting › Bank, or reverse the entry in the journal.

A file already sent

Putting an Ordered invoice back to pay does not cancel the order at the bank. If the file has already been imported into your e-banking, delete the payment there too, otherwise the supplier will be paid.

Legal basis

• Debts to suppliers are part of the accounts payable ledger, a subsidiary ledger the company must keep according to its size: Art. 1 para. 3 GeBüV, the Ordinance on the Keeping and Retention of Accounting Records (German version: fedlex has no English one).
• When VAT is accounted on the basis of agreed consideration, input tax is deducted as soon as the invoice is received; on the basis of consideration received, when it is paid: Art. 40 para. 1 and 2 VAT Act.
• The QR-bill and its references follow SIX’s standard: Swiss Payment Standards, QR-bill.