How to Fix a Bill Payment Recorded as an Expense in QuickBooks Online

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A really common misstep people make when using QuickBooks Online is to accidentally record bills as both a bill and an expense. 

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to fix this so your books are correct.

Quick Instructions:

  1. Open the Expense
  2. Click the Add link to the right to convert the Expense to a Bill Payment
  3. Click the Save and Close button

Keep reading for a complete walkthrough with screenshots:

Fixing Bills Entered as Expenses

Here’s an example where I have a Hubdoc bill that was also entered as an expense:

Finding a bill entered as an expense in a Transaction Report in QuickBooks Online.

In this example, I noticed Office Expenses was too high in my Profit and Loss. I clicked on Office Expenses to view the Transaction Report above.

To fix this I can click on the expense in the Transaction Report.

In the upper right corner of the Expense click the Add link. 

Adding a bill payment from an expense in QuickBooks Online.

This will replace the expense with a Bill Payment. From here, click the Save and Close button.

Expense turned into a Bill Payment in QuickBooks Online.

Another way you might find a bill entered as an expense is to click Expenses -> Vendors in the left side menu.

Navigating to Vendor expenses in QuickBooks Online.

Click on or search for a vendor and in the expenses list you’ll see the bill & expense.

Here’s my Hubdoc example:

Bill entered as an expense in the Expenses vendors list in QuickBooks Online

Like above, click on the expense. Click Add to convert it to a Bill Payment, then click Save and Close.

Here you can see an example where that’s been done and I now have a Bill and Bill Payment.

Bill and Bill Payment in expenses in QuickBooks Online.

You now know how to fix a bill entered as both a bill and expense in QuickBooks Online.

☕ If you found this helpful you can say “thanks” by buying me a coffee… https://www.buymeacoffee.com/gentlefrog

Below are videos if you prefer to watch a walkthrough.

If you have any questions about fixing errors like this in QuickBooks Online click the green button below to schedule a free consultation.

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