Purchases

How purchases work

Select Purchases in the main menu. The module has three tabs: Bills, Purchase orders and Expense claims.

1. Enter the document as a draft, with the supplier, dates and line items. For a bill, you can upload the supplier's document and Marbles fills in the details for you.
2. Approve it. Approving a bill or an expense claim posts it to the ledger as an amount owing. A purchase order has no effect on the ledger.
3. Pay it from your bank, then match the bank transaction to the bill or claim in bank reconciliation. Marbles records the payment and updates the amount due.

Bills

A bill is an invoice you receive from a supplier. The Bills tab groups bills by status and shows the total value in draft, awaiting approval, awaiting payment and overdue. Bills can be sorted by date, amount or name.

Creating a bill

Select New bill and complete the details.

• Contact is the supplier. A new contact can be created from this field.
• Issue date and Due date. The issue date is the date the bill is posted to the ledger.
• Bill number is the supplier's invoice number and is required. Reference is optional.
• Tax states whether line amounts are Tax Exclusive, Tax Inclusive or No Tax.
• Each line has an Item, Description, Qty, Price, Discount, Account and Tax rate. Items are maintained under Settings > Products and services.

To enter a bill from the supplier's document, use Upload a bill to add a PDF or image. Marbles reads the document and fills in the details it finds: the supplier, bill number, reference, dates, tax setting and line items. The document is displayed beside the form so that you can check each field against it, and it is attached to the bill when the bill is saved. Review the details before you save. Nothing is recorded until you select Save, Submit for approval or Approve.

Select Save to keep the bill as a draft, Submit for approval to send it for review, or Approve to approve it immediately. Bills are recorded in Australian dollars.

Approving a bill

Open the bill and select Approve, or use the Approve action in the list. Approval posts a journal entry dated on the issue date: the expense or asset accounts on the lines are debited, GST is debited to the GST account, and the total is credited to accounts payable.

A bill can be edited only while it is in draft or awaiting approval. Select Download PDF to save a copy of any bill.

Paying a bill

Pay the supplier from your bank in the usual way. When the payment appears in your bank feed, open bank reconciliation, select Match on the statement line and choose the bill. Marbles records the payment on the transaction's posting date and reduces the Amount due.

A payment smaller than the amount due leaves the bill awaiting payment with the balance outstanding. A payment cannot exceed the amount due. To undo a payment, unreconcile the bank transaction. Matching is described on the Banking page.

Voiding, reversing and deleting

A bill with a payment applied cannot be voided or reversed. Unreconcile the payment first.

Purchase orders

A purchase order records what you have asked a supplier to provide. It does not affect the ledger. Select New purchase order and enter the Contact, Issue date, Delivery date, Reference, Tax setting and line items. The Purchase order number is assigned automatically.

An order can be edited while it is in draft or awaiting approval. Select Download PDF to produce a copy for the supplier. A purchase order can be deleted at any stage.

Copying an order to a bill

When the supplier's invoice arrives, open the approved order and select Copy to bill. Marbles opens a new bill with the order's contact and lines. The bill must be for the same contact as the order. Once the bill is saved, the order is marked as billed and View bill opens the bill from the order.

Expense claims

An expense claim records a business expense paid personally, to be reimbursed by the business. The Expense claims tab has four views: Your own, To review, To pay and All expenses. Claims can be filtered by search term, claim status and account.

Creating and approving a claim

Select New expense and enter the Payee, the date under Spent on, and a Description. Add a line for each item with its Account, Tax rate and Amount. Enter each amount as it appears on the receipt, including GST. Marbles separates the GST according to the tax rate. Claims can be coded to expense, direct cost, overhead and fixed asset accounts.

Select Save to keep the claim as a draft, or Approve to approve it. The claim records the user who created it under Submitted by. On the To review view, Approve all approves every claim listed.

Approval posts a journal entry dated on the Spent on date: the expense accounts and GST are debited, and the total is credited to the Unpaid Expense Claims account. A claim can be edited only while it is a draft.

Reimbursing a claim

Reimburse the claimant from your bank, then match the bank transaction to the claim in bank reconciliation, in the same way as a bill. The claim is marked as paid once it has been reimbursed in full.

A draft claim can be deleted at any time. Deleting an approved claim voids its journal entry, so the claim's date must be in an open period. A claim that has been reimbursed must have its payment unreconciled before it can be deleted.

Roles and permissions