Hi. Please help I am so confused what is the difference between entering a bill and a receipt.
Sorry but the whole time I was using quickbooks so i am new to all this.
Hi @Admingirl007 and welcome to Wave's Community Forum! In Wave, a receipt will show an expense that has immediately occurred for your business - think something that you have already made an expense for and the funds have come from your business already. A bill is usually something that you would receive from a vendor in order for you to pay them for their work. In many cases, the payment isn't required in full until the work or service has been completed, but you are given a bill to show you what the incurred costs will likely be. Bills also typically tend to have a future payment date and payment due date on them. Hope this helps!
I created several bills in for a vendor, as we receive invoices weekly but pay them monthly. I am trying to record a payment by cheque for multiple bills and match the bank transaction. What is the best way to do this? It seems like it should be simple to match the cheque to the invoices but I don't seem to be able to do that?
Hi @LA2! If you have the bank imported transaction in your Transactions page, the best way to do this would be to categorize it as 'Payment sent for a Bill in Wave' then select the outstanding bill. This will mark the bill as 'Paid' and categorize the transaction correctly. If you want to apply the transaction to multiple bills you can split the transaction and categorize each split line to a bill!
In October 2019 we received a bill and paid most of it at that time, but held back approx £40 as there was a dispute, so the invoice showed that it was partially paid with the £40 outstanding. In Feb 2020, we reached an agreement and then paid off the remaining £40. However in the cashflow report it looks like it has treated as having made the full payment twice. It has not recognised that the Feb 2020 payment was only £40 and instead it has taken the full amount on the original invoice. I think this is a bug, please would you look into it. Let me know if you need any more information or screen shots and how I might get them to you. Thanks a lot
@RGSTreasurer Hello! Thanks for reaching out. The first thing I would check here would be to find the specific transactions relating to these bill payments and see what the breakdown of them is.
I would recommend doing that by heading to Accounting > Transactions, select the account in which the payments were made, arrange the dates applicable then filtering by Bills > Payments.
See screenshot below:
If the transactions appear to be in the appropriate amount, feel free to reach out to support to further investigate!
If the transactions appear to be in wrong amounts, it's likely the the payment to the bill was recorded incorrectly. Edit the transactions in the transaction window > click Save.
Hey @Zoono, that's correct. The only way this would actually pay your vendor or transfer them the cash would be if you are signed up for Wave Payroll. If you are not eligible for our payroll software, you would need to pay that vendor outside of the Wave platform.
Why I can/t make a record a payment for Purchases -> Bills guys. The screen just goes dim black and then stuck on that screen. While I check the link for record a payment the link address going to javascript:void(0)
How I can make record a payment? Need your help guys, thanks.
Hey @ourpack , thanks for reaching out! I'm sorry to hear you're having some trouble recording payments on your Bills here. It sounds like this might be a browser/network issue. Below, see some initial troubleshooting for this issue. If, after trying all of the tests below, you're still having trouble, please reach back out and we can see what we can do!
Browser Troubleshooting
Wave supports the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. We'd also recommend that you try using Wave with browser extensions disabled. If you have Chrome, try opening up an incognito window, logging into your Wave account, and try again (or if you have Firefox, open a private browsing window).
If that doesn't work, you may also need to clear your cache and cookies. You can read more about the browsers we support, and how to troubleshoot issues for your individual browser HERE.
Disabling your antivirus software, or adding waveapps.com to your antivirus whitelist should resolve any access issues you're having with our integrations or third party modals (such as banking login info).
I know these tests can seem random, but I've seen these very things work for users in the past!
If I have recurring bills (such as rent), what's the best way to track that? I have been duplicating the bill then making the payment, but starting to wonder if just making a new payment each month on the same bill would be better?
What is the best method?
As an accountant, it is pretty disappointing that Wave does not allow you to pay vendors without setting up payroll. Most of my clients have no need for payroll right now, but they do need to pay their vendors. Having to manually record payments inside the system, but then pay outside is making me reconsider this software. Business owners are looking to reduce their time burden, not expand it. Even if they applied a fee model like they do for receiving customer payments, figuring this out should be a priority.
Is there a quick way of netting bills and invoices to an amount received in the bank?
I'm using Wave to account for rental property. A property agent collects the rent on my behalf, deducts their fees and pays the net amount over into my account. I would like to match the full invoice and the bill to the amount received in the bank in one go.
Currently I am recording the amount received in the bank against the invoice. For the outstanding portion I have to create an additional payment to a control account and then account for an additional payment to the control account.
This adds two additional steps as well as having to check the control account nets to zero on a monthly basis.
I had a look on Accounting > Transactions but this only allows it to select an additional income and not an expense.
Great question. You'll have a few options to record this in Wave.
Record the full deposit on your Transactions page and split it to show each rental deposit along with the property manager fees as a negative item. To record a negative item on an income transaction, you will need to create a "payment processing fees" category and name it along the lines of "Property Management Fees" to help you identify the category. We have a great guide on this here: How to account for transaction fees
Below I attached an example for reference as well:
The other option is to use a clearing account to keep track of what you're owed by the agent. For example, you can create a Money in Transit account called something like “Due from Agent” and then both record invoice payments into it, and Bill payments or other expenses as withdrawals out of it. When the actual deposit hits his bank account and the transaction comes in, youwould categorize that deposit as a “transfer from: Due from Agent account”.
Both options give the same results, it’s more a matter of preference; and how important the exact timing of the transactions is. For example, do you want to record the rent payments on the day the rent is paid to the agent? If so, use the clearing account method. Otherwise, if you only care about when it arrives in your bank I suggest using the split transaction method.
To clarify, if you'd like to use Bills to record your "Property Manager Fees", you’ll have to use the clearing account method, since you can only split a deposit transaction into income accounts and “payment processing fee” accounts.
Another thing to note is that income and expenses in money in transit accounts are included in cash basis reporting. So using the clearing account method, if for instance you'd like to mark a rent invoice as paid December 30 of this year, but the deposit comes into your bank account January 3, that income will be included on your 2020 reports. Using the split transaction method, it would be included on your 2021 reports. Just to note since that matters for your taxes. I hope that helps!
I have certain regular expenses (let's use property insurance payments as an example) set up through Products & Services (I call it Property Insurance Premium), associated with an expense category (I use the Insurance category), that I then include on a new bill every time it needs to be paid. When payment goes out and that transaction registers, I tie it to the bill by categorizing using "Payment Sent for a Bill in Wave" function.
A problem arises when I later try to filter to find these items from the Transactions screen: filtering by the category "Insurance" does not reveal them. They only show up if I filter by "Bills in Wave". If I change the category of each transaction to "Insurance" instead of "Payment Sent for a Bill in Wave", then they show up with the "Insurance" category filter but they no longer show up under the "Bills in Wave" filter.
These transactions should show up under both filters, because they are in the "Insurance" category and are paid by the Bill method. Is there a way to make that happen? I expected that the category associated with the Product & Service listed on the bill should be recognized by the search function and therefore should pull through and be included when I use that filter. The reason I want to be able to do this is that at tax time, I want to be able to double check a list of all my insurance payments, made to different companies by different methods, since some are one-offs (like rental car insurance for a particular trip) and some are regularly occurring (like the property insurance). I also want to be able to view a list of all the bill items in wave, since those are my regularly occurring transactions so I can review my ongoing vs. one-time expenses.
Hey @JimmyWilkins , when you create a product/service in Wave you associate it to an expense account (insurance for example). When you add that product/service to a Bill, the amount associated to it is automatically credited to the insurance account. We do this because you may have different products/services on a single Bill which would contribute to different expense accounts which need to be tracked as such. For that reason, when you're categorizing the transaction itself, it does only appear under Payment sent for a Bill in Wave but on the back end of things it is also being associated to the appropriate expense accounts already.
It seems that this doesn't work for your specific workflow, but I wonder if it would work for you to go one of your reports and filter specifically for the Insurance categorization. This should still show you what you need to see and then you can audit your insurance bills that way.
Comments
Hi. Please help I am so confused what is the difference between entering a bill and a receipt.
Sorry but the whole time I was using quickbooks so i am new to all this.
Hi @Admingirl007 and welcome to Wave's Community Forum! In Wave, a receipt will show an expense that has immediately occurred for your business - think something that you have already made an expense for and the funds have come from your business already. A bill is usually something that you would receive from a vendor in order for you to pay them for their work. In many cases, the payment isn't required in full until the work or service has been completed, but you are given a bill to show you what the incurred costs will likely be. Bills also typically tend to have a future payment date and payment due date on them. Hope this helps!
I created several bills in for a vendor, as we receive invoices weekly but pay them monthly. I am trying to record a payment by cheque for multiple bills and match the bank transaction. What is the best way to do this? It seems like it should be simple to match the cheque to the invoices but I don't seem to be able to do that?
Hi @LA2! If you have the bank imported transaction in your Transactions page, the best way to do this would be to categorize it as 'Payment sent for a Bill in Wave' then select the outstanding bill. This will mark the bill as 'Paid' and categorize the transaction correctly. If you want to apply the transaction to multiple bills you can split the transaction and categorize each split line to a bill!
In October 2019 we received a bill and paid most of it at that time, but held back approx £40 as there was a dispute, so the invoice showed that it was partially paid with the £40 outstanding. In Feb 2020, we reached an agreement and then paid off the remaining £40. However in the cashflow report it looks like it has treated as having made the full payment twice. It has not recognised that the Feb 2020 payment was only £40 and instead it has taken the full amount on the original invoice. I think this is a bug, please would you look into it. Let me know if you need any more information or screen shots and how I might get them to you. Thanks a lot
Never mind...
Create payment is not an option on the purchase tab for me?
@Zoono Looks like you're referring to the process of paying a bill in Wave.
The second part refers to "create a payment" and filling in following details:
Write a brief Memo if you'd like to make any notes on this payment.
Click save to finish the process!
@RGSTreasurer Hello! Thanks for reaching out. The first thing I would check here would be to find the specific transactions relating to these bill payments and see what the breakdown of them is.
I would recommend doing that by heading to Accounting > Transactions, select the account in which the payments were made, arrange the dates applicable then filtering by Bills > Payments.
See screenshot below:
If the transactions appear to be in the appropriate amount, feel free to reach out to support to further investigate!
If the transactions appear to be in wrong amounts, it's likely the the payment to the bill was recorded incorrectly. Edit the transactions in the transaction window > click Save.
When doing this there is no payment option. It only records a payment. It doesn't actually pay the bill to the vendor or transfer cash to the vendor?
Hey @Zoono, that's correct. The only way this would actually pay your vendor or transfer them the cash would be if you are signed up for Wave Payroll. If you are not eligible for our payroll software, you would need to pay that vendor outside of the Wave platform.
Why I can/t make a record a payment for Purchases -> Bills guys. The screen just goes dim black and then stuck on that screen. While I check the link for record a payment the link address going to javascript:void(0)
How I can make record a payment? Need your help guys, thanks.
Hey @ourpack , thanks for reaching out! I'm sorry to hear you're having some trouble recording payments on your Bills here. It sounds like this might be a browser/network issue. Below, see some initial troubleshooting for this issue. If, after trying all of the tests below, you're still having trouble, please reach back out and we can see what we can do!
Browser Troubleshooting
Wave supports the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. We'd also recommend that you try using Wave with browser extensions disabled. If you have Chrome, try opening up an incognito window, logging into your Wave account, and try again (or if you have Firefox, open a private browsing window).
If that doesn't work, you may also need to clear your cache and cookies. You can read more about the browsers we support, and how to troubleshoot issues for your individual browser HERE.
Network Troubleshooting
If you're using a VPN, please disable it.
Please power-cycle your modem and/or router. A great article that walks you through how to do this, and why it helps is available here: https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-properly-restart-a-router-modem-2624570.
Try connecting to a different network. The fastest way to do this is usually to tether to your mobile device.
If you're still having trouble, please make sure that your browser is compatible with Wave.
Disabling your antivirus software, or adding waveapps.com to your antivirus whitelist should resolve any access issues you're having with our integrations or third party modals (such as banking login info).
I know these tests can seem random, but I've seen these very things work for users in the past!
If I have recurring bills (such as rent), what's the best way to track that? I have been duplicating the bill then making the payment, but starting to wonder if just making a new payment each month on the same bill would be better?
What is the best method?
As an accountant, it is pretty disappointing that Wave does not allow you to pay vendors without setting up payroll. Most of my clients have no need for payroll right now, but they do need to pay their vendors. Having to manually record payments inside the system, but then pay outside is making me reconsider this software. Business owners are looking to reduce their time burden, not expand it. Even if they applied a fee model like they do for receiving customer payments, figuring this out should be a priority.
Is there a quick way of netting bills and invoices to an amount received in the bank?
I'm using Wave to account for rental property. A property agent collects the rent on my behalf, deducts their fees and pays the net amount over into my account. I would like to match the full invoice and the bill to the amount received in the bank in one go.
Currently I am recording the amount received in the bank against the invoice. For the outstanding portion I have to create an additional payment to a control account and then account for an additional payment to the control account.
This adds two additional steps as well as having to check the control account nets to zero on a monthly basis.
I had a look on Accounting > Transactions but this only allows it to select an additional income and not an expense.
Hey @D_D !
Great question. You'll have a few options to record this in Wave.
Below I attached an example for reference as well:
Both options give the same results, it’s more a matter of preference; and how important the exact timing of the transactions is. For example, do you want to record the rent payments on the day the rent is paid to the agent? If so, use the clearing account method. Otherwise, if you only care about when it arrives in your bank I suggest using the split transaction method.
To clarify, if you'd like to use Bills to record your "Property Manager Fees", you’ll have to use the clearing account method, since you can only split a deposit transaction into income accounts and “payment processing fee” accounts.
Another thing to note is that income and expenses in money in transit accounts are included in cash basis reporting. So using the clearing account method, if for instance you'd like to mark a rent invoice as paid December 30 of this year, but the deposit comes into your bank account January 3, that income will be included on your 2020 reports. Using the split transaction method, it would be included on your 2021 reports. Just to note since that matters for your taxes. I hope that helps!
I have certain regular expenses (let's use property insurance payments as an example) set up through Products & Services (I call it Property Insurance Premium), associated with an expense category (I use the Insurance category), that I then include on a new bill every time it needs to be paid. When payment goes out and that transaction registers, I tie it to the bill by categorizing using "Payment Sent for a Bill in Wave" function.
A problem arises when I later try to filter to find these items from the Transactions screen: filtering by the category "Insurance" does not reveal them. They only show up if I filter by "Bills in Wave". If I change the category of each transaction to "Insurance" instead of "Payment Sent for a Bill in Wave", then they show up with the "Insurance" category filter but they no longer show up under the "Bills in Wave" filter.
These transactions should show up under both filters, because they are in the "Insurance" category and are paid by the Bill method. Is there a way to make that happen? I expected that the category associated with the Product & Service listed on the bill should be recognized by the search function and therefore should pull through and be included when I use that filter. The reason I want to be able to do this is that at tax time, I want to be able to double check a list of all my insurance payments, made to different companies by different methods, since some are one-offs (like rental car insurance for a particular trip) and some are regularly occurring (like the property insurance). I also want to be able to view a list of all the bill items in wave, since those are my regularly occurring transactions so I can review my ongoing vs. one-time expenses.
Thanks for your suggestions.
Hey @JimmyWilkins , when you create a product/service in Wave you associate it to an expense account (insurance for example). When you add that product/service to a Bill, the amount associated to it is automatically credited to the insurance account. We do this because you may have different products/services on a single Bill which would contribute to different expense accounts which need to be tracked as such. For that reason, when you're categorizing the transaction itself, it does only appear under Payment sent for a Bill in Wave but on the back end of things it is also being associated to the appropriate expense accounts already.
It seems that this doesn't work for your specific workflow, but I wonder if it would work for you to go one of your reports and filter specifically for the Insurance categorization. This should still show you what you need to see and then you can audit your insurance bills that way.
Let us know if this works for you!