Creating and Using Bills

Imagine if you have been sent an invoice for stationery for £50, payable within 30 days. You can create a Bill on Clever Accounts to track the invoice and ensure you pay this off when it is due for payment.

You do not need to create bills for everything. Payments going directly out of the bank should be explained as a bank payment once you have uploaded your bank statement. Also, if you have paid for something personally you should enter this as an expense claim. 

Adding a bill

Navigate to the the Bills section and click 

 

Populate the boxes with the necessary details. 

Date  enter the date of the bill. This would normally be the date on the bill you have received. 

Due Date  enter the date the bill is due to be paid. 

Ref  enter a reference for the bill.  This field could be a unique reference for each bill or a generic description of what has been purchased. You can go into more detail if required on the Line Ref.

Contact  assign the bill to an existing contact or create a new one by clicking the grey + symbol. 

Project  assign the bill to a project if required. 

Entering bill items

The next section allows you to enter each individual expense item such as stationery, accountancy, telephone or any other expense you may have incurred.  Each line should either represent each individual line on the bill or a generic description for the bill. For example, if you purchase stationery from a supplier, one bill item could be a pack of pens and another some paper, or you could group them together, as long as you can reference back to the receipts. HMRC will require you to retain the business receipts for bills, and you should be able to link to this if requested.  

Nominal Code this is the account number that is used to assign the bill line to an expense category such as stationery, accountancy, telephone or any other relevant code.  To assign an account code, starting typing the type of expense that was incurred e.g. stationery, accountancy, telephone...or click on the box to show all of them.

Line Ref enters a reference that can be used to track the bill in the future.  This could be an invoice number, name of the supplier or a description of what the bill relates to.

Qty if you are purchasing multiple items and can break them down, enter the quantity here.  

Amount this will default to the Gross amount (the total paid including VAT) though if you want to enter the net amount (the total paid excluding VAT), this can be selected from the drop-down. Ensure the item is a VAT expense by checking the receipt to ensure it has a VAT number on and a breakdown of how much VAT has been charged.  Items such as train, taxis, flights and buses do not usually have VAT on.  You cannot claim VAT on entertaining clients, so these should be entered gross, as if they had no VAT charged on them. 

VAT  this will automatically populate based on the nominal code, though can be updated using the dropdown. If the bill includes VAT, then the rate would normally be 20%.  If the item does not include VAT, or you cannot claim VAT on it, choose 0% rate.

Options  Click the  options button for further options.

  Recharge to Customer  from the options slider click the drop-down in Recharge to  Customer and select the customer you would like to recharge

  Attach file to item click Attach File to upload an image of the expense item. 

 

Add a bill item

Click on the Add Item button to carry on adding new bill items to the bill.

Video Guide