Purchases

How purchases work

Select Purchases in the main menu. The module has four tabs: Bills, Purchase orders, Expense claims and Supplier Credit Notes.

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 view it beside the form.
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.

To keep the supplier's document with the bill, select Upload and add a PDF or image under Upload a bill. The document is displayed beside the form while you enter the details, and is attached to the bill when it is saved.

• 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, currency and tax holds the optional Reference, the currency, which is always AUD, and Amounts are, which 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.

Select Save & close to keep the bill as a draft, or Approve to approve it immediately. The menu beside each button offers Save & add another, Approve & add another and Submit for approval, which sends the bill for review.

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 and deleting

A bill dated on or before the lock date cannot be voided. To cancel it, select Create and apply credit and date the supplier credit note after the lock date. See Supplier credit notes.

A bill with a payment or credit applied cannot be voided. Unreconcile the payment, or remove the credit allocation, 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 and line items, with the same reference and tax settings as a bill. 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 until it has been billed.

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.

Supplier credit notes

A supplier credit note reduces the amount you owe a supplier, for returned goods or a billing correction, for example. Select New supplier credit note on the Supplier Credit Notes tab, or open a bill awaiting payment and select Create and apply credit to raise a credit note against that bill. A credit note raised from a bill starts with the bill's supplier, tax setting and lines, and the bill number as its reference.

• Supplier is the contact. It cannot be changed on a credit note raised from a bill.
• Issue date is the date the credit note is posted to the ledger.
• Credit note number is the supplier's credit note number and is required.
• The reference, tax setting and lines are entered as for a bill. Add the supplier's document under Attachments.

Select Save & close to keep the credit note as a draft, or Approve to approve it. The menu beside Approve offers Submit for approval.

Approval posts a journal entry dated on the issue date that mirrors a bill: accounts payable is debited with the total, and the accounts on the lines and GST are credited. A credit note raised from a bill is applied to that bill when it is approved, up to the amount still due on the bill. A credit note can be edited or deleted only while it is in draft or awaiting approval.

Allocating credit

Open an available credit note. Under Allocate credit, Marbles lists the supplier's bills awaiting payment with the amount due on each. Enter the Amount to credit against one or more bills, then select Allocate credit. An allocation cannot exceed the amount due on the bill or the credit remaining on the credit note. A credit note applies only to bills for the same supplier.

Allocated credit is shown as Credited on the bill and reduces its Amount due. A bill settled in full is marked as paid. An allocation is dated on the later of the bill's date and the credit note's date, and cannot be made or removed if that date is on or before the lock date.

Allocations are listed on the credit note under Allocated to, where each can be removed. A credit note can be voided only after its allocations have been removed, and only while its date is in an open period. Credit that has not been allocated is shown as a negative amount on Aged Payables.

Roles and permissions