Suppliers
How purchasing documents change a supplier's balance
Which documents raise or lower what you owe a supplier, why a cash invoice shows two lines, and where to look when a balance moves unexpectedly.
3 min readLast updated
In this article
A supplier's balance is what you owe them. Only a handful of documents move it, so when the figure changes you can always trace the cause in the supplier's ledger.
What moves the balance
Document | Effect on what you owe |
|---|---|
Purchase invoice on a credit term | Goes up by the invoice total |
Purchase invoice on the cash term | No net change: the invoice and an automatic payment of the same amount are recorded together |
Supplier payment, from Accounting › Payments › Pay Supplier | Goes down by the amount paid plus any settlement discount |
Return to the supplier | Goes down by the returned value including tax |
Editing a purchase invoice | The old invoice is backed out and the corrected one applied |
Deleting a purchase invoice | The invoice is backed out. For a cash invoice the automatic payment is reversed too |
Supplier bonus reflected on the account | Goes down by the bonus earned |
Manufacturing labour charged by the supplier | Goes up by the labour cost |
Why a cash invoice shows two rows
A purchase invoice on the cash term is paid on the spot from the cash box of the user who saved it. The ledger shows the invoice row and a payment row of the same amount, and the balance does not change. This is expected, not a duplicate.
Reading debit and credit
The supplier ledger reads the opposite way to a customer ledger. A debit-type movement such as an invoice increases what you owe. A credit-type movement such as a payment or a return decreases it. The note Payable: debit increases, credit decreases the balance — opposite of the customer ledger. on the ledger is a reminder.
When a balance moves and you do not know why
Open Purchasing › Suppliers, click the supplier and select Open ledger.
Look at the latest rows of Transactions. The Type and Category columns name the document behind each movement.
For an invoice, open it from Purchasing › Purchase Invoices › Purchasing Invoice to see who saved it and when.
Common causes of an unexpected drop: a return to the supplier, an invoice that was deleted or edited, a settlement discount on a payment, or a supplier bonus credited to the account.