Record and track a purchase bill or an expense

Why this matters

Your suppliers' invoices, the rent, electricity or transport often end up in a drawer, and you find out too late what is left to pay. By recording them in Expenses, you see at a glance what you owe, what is overdue, and what you actually spent over the period.

Summary

An expense records a received invoice: its type, its supplier, its lines, its date and its scheduled payment date. It starts as Awaiting payment, then each recorded payment moves it to Partially paid, then Paid. An expense created from Expenses brings nothing into stock: for goods to resell, use the purchase of goods.

Prerequisites

• The expenses.create permission to create an expense, expenses.update to edit it and record a payment, expenses.delete to delete it, expenses.view to view it.
• The stats.view permission to see the indicators at the top of the list.
• At least one treasury account (cash, bank, mobile money) to record payments.

Steps: recording the invoice

1. Open Menu › Finances › Expenses (/bills) and click Create a bill. The New Bill screen opens.
2. Choose the Expense type: Merchandise purchase, Rent, Utilities (electricity, water, gas), Delivery and transport fees, etc. The rest of the form appears once the type is chosen. Changing the type clears the supplier already chosen.
3. Check the Shop concerned.
4. Choose the Supplier, or create them on the spot with Create a new supplier (see "Create a supplier"). The supplier is optional.
5. Leave State on Expense. The other choice, Purchase Order, prepares an order to the supplier (see "Track a supplier purchase order").
6. In Expense items, type the name of each line: pick an existing item, or create a new line. Enter the Cost and the Quantity.
7. Set the Bill date (the invoice date) and the Scheduled payment date (its due date).
8. In Medias, add the photo or PDF of the invoice.
9. In Billing informations, choose the Billing method: the treasury account that will be used to pay. Add a note if needed, then check the Total.
10. Click Add Expense. Genuka opens the expense it created, with the Awaiting payment status.

Steps: recording a payment

1. Open the expense and click Add payment.
2. The New payment window suggests the remaining amount to pay. Keep it to settle everything, or enter an advance.
3. Choose the Payment method (the treasury account the money comes from), the Payment date and, if you recorded one on the supplier's record, the Supplier account paid. Add the Transaction reference (optional): the Mobile Money or transfer identifier.
4. Click Confirm payment. The expense moves to Partially paid or Paid, and the button disappears once the expense is settled.

Tracking your expenses

• At the top of the Expenses list, the indicators Expenses (period), To pay, Late, To receive, Number of expenses and Average expense. Clicking an indicator filters the list.
• The filters combine the Payment status, the Document type (expense or purchase order), the supplier, the shop, an amount range, the creation date and the due date.
• On a supplier's record, the Purchases tab lists their expenses, and the Balance due and Overdue indicators say what you owe them.
• The Actions menu of an expense offers Edit, Duplicate (copies the expense into a new form) and Delete.

Fields and options

Edge cases and common mistakes

• "You must enter a billing address". When the chosen supplier has no address on record, Genuka blocks creation. Tick Set a billing address and fill in Address, City and Country, or first add an address on the supplier's record.
• A payment higher than the balance is refused. The message "The payment amount exceeds the remaining amount" is shown. A zero or negative amount is also refused.
• The due date is not calculated from the supplier's payment terms. The Scheduled payment date is prefilled with today's date: enter the invoice's due date yourself.
• After a first partial payment, the expense no longer counts as "Late". Genuka clears an expense's due date as soon as it is partially paid. Track these expenses with the Partially paid filter and the To pay amount.
• The goods did not enter stock. An expense created from Expenses does not touch the stock. Record the goods with a stock entry, or use the purchase of goods, which does both at once.
• Accounting. If you keep your books in Genuka, the expense and its payments produce their entries according to your automatic entry settings. Once these entries are posted, a line's accounting account can no longer be changed.
• Deleting an expense. Actions › Delete also cancels its payments and its accounting entries.

FAQ

Do I have to create an expense for every small expense? Yes if you want to find it in your figures. To go fast, send the photo of the receipt to the Genuka assistant on WhatsApp: it creates the expense for you.

How do I pay an invoice in installments? Record a payment at each installment, with the amount paid. The expense stays Partially paid until the last payment.

I paid a supplier before receiving their invoice. What do I do? Record an advance from the Payment accounts tab of their record, with Pay an advance.

What is the difference with a purchase of goods? A purchase of goods records in one go the expense, its payment and the stock entry. The expense alone handles neither the stock nor, at creation, the payment.

See also

• Create a supplier
• Supplier products (purchased items)
• Record a purchase of goods that feeds the stock
• Track a supplier purchase order
• Record and track your expenses from WhatsApp