Vendor bills¶
Vendor bills can be registered either manually or automatically in Odoo. The Aged Payable report provides an overview of all outstanding bills to help ensure timely payment of the correct amounts.
Bill creation¶
Manually¶
To create a vendor bill manually, go to and click New.
Tip
Alternatively, it is possible to create a vendor bill from the Accounting dashboard:
either click New on the Vendor Bills journal;
or click the (vertical ellipsis) icon of the Vendor Bills journal, then Bill under the New section.
Automatically¶
Vendor bills can be automatically created by sending an email to the Email Alias of the purchase journal, or by clicking Upload in the list of bills and selecting the document.
Note
Once the bill is uploaded, the PDF document appears on the right side of the screen, making it easy to fill in the bill information.
If the uploaded file is a structured electronic invoice (e.g., UBL, Factur-X, or a PDF with an embedded XML), the bill is completed automatically from its content. Bills received via Peppol are also created automatically.
To automatically post bills from selected vendors, go to and select the relevant vendor. In the Accounting tab, under the Automation section, update the Auto-post bills field with one of the following options:
Always
Ask after 3 validations without edits
Never
Bill completion¶
Whether the bill is created manually or automatically, make sure the following fields are appropriately completed:
Vendor: Odoo automatically fills in some information based on the information on the vendor’s contact record as well as previous purchase orders and bills.
Bill Reference: Add the sales order reference provided by the vendor. This field is used to match the products when they are received.
Auto-Complete: Select a past bill/purchase order to complete the document automatically. The Vendor field should be completed before completing this field.
Bill Date: Select the document’s issuance date.
Accounting Date: Update the document’s accounting registration date if needed.
Payment Reference: The Memo field automatically includes the payment reference once the payment is registered.
Recipient Bank: Indicates the vendor’s account number to which the payment will be made. The account must be trusted to be used for outgoing payments.
Due Date or Payment Terms must be specified for the bill payment.
Journal: Select which journal should record the bill and in which currency.
- menu
- Accounting ‣ Vendors ‣ Bills ‣ Upload
- shows
- Draft vendor bill created from an uploaded PDF: the bill fields on the left (Vendor, Bill Reference, Auto-Complete, Bill Date, Accounting Date, Payment Reference, Recipient Bank, Due Date, Journal) and the PDF preview on the right.
- highlight
- The PDF preview (red frame).
- data
- Demo company "YourCompany HU"; demo vendor bill PDF.
- module
- account, purchase
- notes
- English UI, light theme, 1920px width to show the side-by-side preview.
In the Invoice Lines tab:
Product: Click Add a line, then search for and select the product.
Quantity
Price
Taxes (if applicable)
Tip
If the bill line does not correspond to an existing product in the database, click the (bars) icon to enter a description for the bill line without linking it to a product.
To access the product catalog and view all items in an organized display, click Catalog. When the products and quantities are selected, click Back to Bill to return to the vendor bill; the selected catalog items will appear in the vendor bill lines.
The invoice line tools (e.g., adding products from receipts, bulk adding products, copying line values) are also available on vendor bills. To record the purchase of a fixed asset or a prepaid expense, select an Asset Category on the bill line (see Non-current assets and fixed assets and Deferred expenses).
Note
Multiple bills for the same purchase order may be issued if the vendor is on back-order and sends invoices as products are shipped or if the vendor sends partial bills or requests a deposit. In this case, multiple bills may have the same Bill Reference.
Bill confirmation¶
Click Confirm when the document is completed. The status changes to Posted, and a journal entry is generated based on the vendor bill information. On confirmation, Odoo assigns each vendor bill a unique number from a defined sequence.
Note
Once confirmed, a vendor bill can no longer be updated. Click Reset to draft if changes are required.
If an approval rule applies to the bill, it must be approved before it can be confirmed.
Payment and reconciliation¶
To register a payment, click on Pay. In the Pay window, select the Journal, the Payment Method, the Amount, and the Currency.
When the Amount paid is less than the total remaining amount on the vendor bill, the payment is partial, and the Payment Difference field displays the outstanding balance.
The Memo field is filled automatically if the Payment Reference has been set correctly on the vendor bill. If the field is empty, select the vendor invoice number as a reference.
Then click Create payment. An In Payment/Partial banner appears on the bill until it is reconciled and its status updates to Paid.
See also
Aged payable report¶
To get an overview of the open vendor bills and their due dates, go to . The report lists the vendors with their outstanding amounts by due period; expand a vendor to view the details of their outstanding bills.
Tip
A printable version is available in (select the Payable Accounts).