Bills and Payments

Overview

The Bills feature in TimelyChurch helps you track accounts payable before payments are issued. Instead of posting an immediate expense upon receiving an invoice, you can record the bill, monitor its due date, and issue payment when ready. This maintains an accurate overview of outstanding liabilities.

Bill Statuses

A bill is also marked Overdue when it remains unpaid or partially paid past its specified due date.

Creating a Bill

1. Navigate to Finances > Accounting and open the Bills tab (the Bills & Payments page).
2. Click Add Bill. The Add New Bill window opens.
3. Fill in the bill fields:
   • Payee (required): select the vendor. If the vendor does not exist in your directory, add them on the Payees page first.
   • Bill #: enter the vendor's invoice or reference number.
   • Bill Date (required): the date printed on the vendor invoice.
   • Due Date (required): the payment due date. This must be on or after the bill date.
   • Amount (required): the total amount owed.
   • Category: assign an expense category for proper budget allocation.
   • Fund: optionally assign the bill to a specific church fund.
   • Description: add notes regarding the invoice items or purpose.
   • Recurring Bill: enable this toggle for repeating vendor invoices (see Recurring Bills).
4. Click Add Bill.

The bill appears in the list marked with the "Unpaid" status. If the bill is refused for any reason, the Add Bill window remains open and preserves what you typed.

Viewing Bills

Summary metrics appear at the top of the Bills screen:

• Unpaid: count of open bills with an outstanding balance.
• Owed: total dollar balance currently due.
• Overdue: count of unpaid bills that have passed their due date.

Filter controls include:

• Status: filter by All Statuses, Unpaid, Partially Paid, or Paid.
• Payee: filter by a selected vendor (All Payees).

Each record displays the Bill #, Payee, Category, Due Date (with overdue duration), Amount (along with payments made to date), and Status, as well as a ↻ Recurring badge on recurring entries.

The list sorts by due date in ascending order to highlight items requiring near-term attention.

Paying a Bill

When issuing a payment:

1. In the Bills list, click Pay on the bill row, or click View to open the bill detail screen and select Pay Bill.
2. The Pay Bill window confirms the vendor and balance. Enter payment information:
   • Pay From Account: select the bank account the payment will come from.
   • Payment Date: the actual date the payment is issued.
   • Check #: enter the check number when paying by check.
   • Payment Amount: enter the amount paid. For full payment, keep the total amount due. For an installment, enter the partial amount.
3. Click Record Payment.

Recording bill payments requires the Edit permission on the Accounting row of your role.

The Pay From Account selector lists only bank and cash accounts. If the entry cannot be saved, the window stays open and preserves your entered values.

What Happens When You Pay a Bill

• An expense transaction posts automatically to the selected bank account with the bill's payee, category, fund, and description.
• When the payment satisfies the full balance, the bill updates to Paid.
• When the payment covers only part of the total, the status changes to Partial and tracks the remaining balance.
• The corresponding bank account balance updates immediately.

Tip: You do not need to separately record the expense transaction when paying a bill. The system creates it for you. If you record the transaction manually AND pay the bill, you will have a duplicate expense entry.

Partial Payments

TimelyChurch supports partial bill settlements:

1. Click Pay on the bill row (or Pay Bill on the detail page).
2. Enter the amount to be paid, less than the full balance due.
3. Click Record Payment.

The bill status updates to "Partial", and the system records the payment amount. You can apply further payments until the bill is settled.

In the summary metrics, the total amount owed reflects the remaining balance rather than the original invoice total.

Editing a Bill

You can edit bills that are unpaid or partially paid:

1. In the Bills list, click Edit on the bill row.
2. Adjust details in the Edit Bill window. (Recurring configuration is set during initial creation and does not appear here.)
3. Click Update Bill.

Note: Paid bills cannot be edited. If you need to correct a paid bill, void the payment first.

If an update is rejected, the Edit Bill window preserves the values you entered.

Deleting a Bill

Unpaid bills can be deleted:

1. Click Delete on the bill row (or Delete Bill on the detail page).
2. Confirm the action in the Delete Bill window ("This action cannot be undone.").

Note: Paid bills cannot be deleted. You must void the payment first, which returns the bill to unpaid status.

Voiding a Bill Payment

When a payment was posted in error or a check was returned:

1. Open the detail page for the paid or partially paid bill.
2. Click Void Payment and confirm.
3. The bill status reverts to "Unpaid" with the amount paid set back to zero.

Voiding payments requires the Void permission on the Accounting row of your role (included in Full Access).

The resulting action depends on reconciliation status:

• If not reconciled: the expense transaction is deleted.
• If reconciled: the original transaction cannot be deleted without breaking the reconciliation balance. The system creates an offsetting income transaction for the same amount, dated today, with "VOID:" prepended to the description. A notice will explain this entry.

A bill payment cannot be refunded. If you use Refund on the expense that paying a bill created, it is refused with "This expense is a bill payment — void the bill payment instead." Voiding is the way to take a bill payment back; it also returns the bill to unpaid. (For a vendor's refund of an ordinary purchase, see Recording a Refund on an Expense.)

Payments and void reversals cannot be dated within a reconciled bank period. Both actions are blocked to prevent completed reconciliations from falling out of balance. Always date bill payments after the statement date of the most recent completed reconciliation.

The Void Payment dialog details the exact transactions being reversed.

Bill Detail Page

Selecting a bill opens its detail view:

• Bill specifications (Bill Date, Due Date, Amount, Amount Paid, description, category, and fund)
• Current payment status and overdue duration
• Payment Transaction: records indicating when, where, and by what check number payments were issued
• Creator identity and last modification timestamp
• Pay Bill, Void Payment, and Delete Bill actions (editing is handled from the Bills list)

The page displays an itemized history of every payment recorded against the bill.

Recurring Bills

Vendor obligations that repeat on a regular schedule, such as utilities, insurance, or recurring software subscriptions, can be automated using recurring bills.

Creating a Recurring Bill

1. Click Add Bill and configure the first invoice (the Due Date establishes the schedule).
2. Enable the Recurring Bill toggle.
3. Select a Frequency: Weekly, Bi-Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, or Yearly.
4. Optionally specify an End Date (optional) to stop the schedule after that date.
5. Click Add Bill.

"Next bill auto-generated when this one is due." TimelyChurch evaluates recurring bills daily and generates the next bill in the series with identical payee, amount, category, fund, and description, advancing the due date by the selected frequency. Each generated bill operates as an independent record that you pay, edit, void, or delete, labeled with the ↻ Recurring badge.

Stopping a Recurring Bill

Frequency and expiration dates are set during bill creation; the Edit Bill window does not modify them. To end a schedule automatically, include an End Date during setup.

A recurring bill's detail view shows its schedule and upcoming due date. To end a series immediately, open the bill, click Stop repeating, and confirm ("No new bills will be created from it. Bills already created and their payments are not changed."). A bill generated from a terminated recurring series indicates that the series has ended.

Best Practices for Bills

Enter bills when you receive them. Even if you are not paying immediately, recording the bill helps you see your total obligations and avoid missed due dates.

Review the bills list weekly. Check for upcoming due dates and overdue bills. The summary at the top of the page gives you a quick snapshot.

Use the Payee field consistently. Always select the correct payee from the dropdown. This ensures accurate vendor spending reports and 1099 tracking.

Closing the year: Unpaid or partially paid bills dated in a year block Close Fiscal Year for that year: pay or delete them first. See Year-End Close.

Assign categories and funds. Proper categorization ensures your Income Statement and Budget Variance reports are accurate.

Related Articles

• Managing Payees and Vendors
• Recording Transactions
• Recording a Refund on an Expense
• Year-End Close
• What Your AI Assistant Can Read and Change

Last updated: 2026-10-21 (8.205.306).