FCC Admin Tasks - Handling Vendor Invoices

Handling Vendor Invoices

We receive vendor invoices by email or snail mail. The procedures below were found to be best practice, but you may in fact find another method that works best for you.

Establish at least two days each month to record vendor payments into QuickBooks.
Most vendors have been set up with auto payments. A few require issuing a bill payment from the bank or provide a payment link on notification emails. Pertinent vendor information should be kept up to date in the Established Vendors Google sheet.
The bank sends notification emails when the operations checking account balance falls below an established limit set by the Treasurer. If you receive such a notification or if you are aware of an inordinately large upcoming expense, notify the Treasurer and request that additional funds be transferred to the account.

When Invoices are Received from Vendors

Handling is based on whether the notice is received by email or by mail:

Email Notice (see Figure 1)

Follow instructions on the email to locate the invoice/bill.
Take note of the due date or scheduled autopayment date.
Save the invoice/bill as a PDF in the Pending QuickBooks folder. A good practice is to name the PDF with the vendor's name, amount and the due date separated by the underscore character ("_").
Snooze the email to a date you've established to record expenses into QuickBooks and it will reappear in your inbox on that date as a reminder.

Mailed Notice

Take note of the due date or scheduled autopayment date.
Use the "Email" function on the copier to email a PDF to the office@fortworthucc.org email address and save the PDF attachment to the Pending QuickBooks folder using the naming convention mentioned above.

Figure 1: Sample Email Invoice Notification

Recording and Paying an Invoice

If you employ the practice described above when you receive a invoice notice, snoozed emails will reappear in your inbox as scheduled. If the invoices are not already be in the Pending QuickBooks folder, follow the instructions in the email notice to download the invoices as PDFs.

Making the Payment

Most vendors are set up to be auto paid and you will have received a notice that an auto payment will soon occur. If auto payment is not in place, the vendor may offer a payment link in their email notification. When neither auto payment or payment on the vendor's website are options, the next best method is to "Bill Pay" out of PNC Bank Checking account. If "Bill Pay" is not an option, you have to print and mail a check as payment.

Recording the Payment in QuickBooks (see Figure 2)

By far the most straightforward way to record an expense accurately is to:

Browse to the QuickBooks Vendor page and enter the vendor's name in the search field.
Locate and edit the most recent expense recorded for the vendor.
At the bottom of the page, click on More > Copy to create a copy of the previous expense.
Alter all of the information specific to the expense you are handling such as the date, invoice number, product/item detail, memo, amount, etc.
Delete any uploaded document associated with the copied expense.
Drag the PDFs associated with the current expense onto the area provide on the screen.
Click on "Save and Close"

Figure 2: Values to Change on a Copied Expense

Vendors Which Require Special Handling

Most of our regular vendors are set to be automatically paid, email invoices and email payment notifications. These few require extra steps detailed in these Google docs.