Accounts Payable & Receivable
Vendor bills and customer invoices tracked so it’s clear what the business owes, what customers owe it, and what’s already been paid.
Why it matters
A business can be profitable on paper and still spend too much time asking two basic questions: which vendor bills still need attention, and which customers still have open invoices? Balanced On Time Books can keep accounts payable and accounts receivable organized within the agreed bookkeeping scope, so outstanding balances can be reviewed instead of reconstructed from email and bank activity.
Accounts payable: what the business still owes
A vendor bill records the amount, coding, and due date so the obligation stays visible until it’s paid — different from an expense paid immediately.
Accounts receivable: what customers still owe
A customer invoice creates an open balance that remains outstanding until a payment, credit, or other approved resolution is applied to it.
Aging reports make the backlog visible
Open invoices or bills grouped by how long they’ve been outstanding, so a not-yet-due invoice is easy to tell apart from one that’s been overdue for weeks — a management tool, not an automatic instruction to pay a bill or start collections.
Payments have to be applied, not merely recorded
An invoice or bill can still show as open even after money changed hands if a payment was entered but never linked to it. Cleaning up unapplied activity keeps aging reports from showing balances that aren’t actually outstanding.
A/P and A/R still reconcile to cash
A customer payment or vendor bill payment still needs to show up in the bank the way the subledger says it did — outstanding balances are only half the picture.
Good to know
You keep final approval over payments, transfers, refunds, credits, and write-offs — this service doesn’t authorize payments or move money on its own; the exact division of responsibilities gets documented during onboarding.
Accounts payable: what the business still owes
Accounts payable is used when the business receives a vendor bill now and pays it later. The bill records the vendor, amount, expense or account coding, invoice date, and due date so the obligation can remain visible until it’s paid — different from an expense that’s paid immediately. QuickBooks distinguishes bills from checks and expenses largely by timing: a bill represents an amount that will be paid later and can therefore remain in A/P until payment is applied.
A/P support can include
Entering and organizing vendor bills
Bills get entered or reviewed from the source documents supplied by the client, with vendor names and bill coding kept reasonably consistent, and invoice and due dates recorded so open obligations can be reviewed.
Monitoring unpaid-bill and A/P aging reports
Within the accounting system, so it’s clear which bills are current and which have passed their due date.
Preparing payment information within the agreed workflow
A payment queue or similar preparation step, with applied payments matched to the correct vendor bills and the resulting cash movement reconciled to the bank or credit-card account.
Investigating old or unapplied balances
Old open bills, unapplied vendor credits, or balances that no longer agree with the supporting records get investigated rather than left to accumulate — and where the backlog is larger, a broader cleanup may be the faster path.
The client approves the money movement
Balanced On Time Books isn’t the final authority deciding which vendors get paid, how much is paid, or when money leaves the account. The business retains final approval over payments, bank transfers, vendor credits, and other disbursement decisions. That control matters even when the bookkeeping team prepares the payment information — a vendor’s banking instructions can change, invoices can be disputed, cash priorities can shift, and the client is the party responsible for authorizing the use of its funds.
Accounts receivable: what customers still owe
Accounts receivable is the other side of the process. A customer invoice creates an open balance that remains outstanding until the payment, credit, or other approved resolution is applied to that invoice. A/R support can make open invoices easier to see by keeping invoice dates, due dates, customer payments, credits, and outstanding balances organized in the accounting file.
A/R support can include
Creating and reviewing customer invoices
From information approved by the client, with payment terms and due dates recorded where the business uses them.
Applying received payments to the correct invoices
And keeping customer credits and approved adjustments connected to the appropriate account activity.
Reviewing open-invoice and A/R aging reports
To identify invoices that remain outstanding so the client knows which balances need follow-up.
Reconciling customer receipts and deposits
To the accounting records, and investigating unapplied payments, duplicate invoices, old credits, or balances that remain open after the customer has paid.
Aging reports make the backlog visible
An aging report groups open invoices or bills by how long they’ve been outstanding. In QuickBooks, items can be shown as current or placed into past-due aging buckets based on the transaction’s due date. For receivables, that makes it easier to distinguish a customer invoice that isn’t yet due from one that’s been overdue for weeks; for payables, the same idea helps the business review upcoming vendor obligations and bills that have already passed their due dates. An aging report is a management tool, not an automatic instruction to pay a bill, write off a customer, or begin collections — those decisions remain with the business.
Payments have to be applied, not merely recorded
A common bookkeeping problem is an invoice or bill that still appears open even though money already changed hands. That can happen when a customer payment was entered but never applied to the invoice, or when a vendor payment was recorded separately instead of being linked to the bill. QuickBooks treats those as open transactions until the payment or credit is properly applied, and cleaning up unapplied activity prevents the A/R or A/P aging report from showing balances that aren’t actually outstanding.
A/R and A/P still need to reconcile to cash
The subledger can say a customer paid, but the related deposit still needs to appear in the bank. The system can say a vendor bill was paid, but the cash withdrawal still needs to match what actually cleared. That’s why A/P and A/R support belongs inside a broader monthly bookkeeping process — payments, deposits, refunds, transfers, card activity, and other cash movement are reconciled to the financial accounts rather than left as disconnected bookkeeping entries, and open-balance activity is reflected consistently in the monthly financial statements.
What this service does not mean
Keeping receivables organized isn’t collections work — Balanced On Time Books can surface overdue invoices and keep payment status current, but doesn’t guarantee collection or provide legal enforcement, credit decisions, or lending. Keeping payables organized doesn’t mean every bill gets paid automatically; the business may need to dispute an invoice or verify new banking instructions before money moves. And operational invoice and bill tracking doesn’t convert cash-basis bookkeeping to accrual — the accounting treatment stays consistent with the method established for the engagement. If the business requires full accrual accounting, formal bad-debt estimates, or complex revenue recognition, that should be identified as a separate accounting need.
Cincinnati, New York City, and remote A/P & A/R support
Balanced On Time Books is based in Cincinnati and building a presence in New York City, with vendor bills and customer invoices reviewed remotely through QuickBooks Online or NetSuite — a business in either city, or elsewhere, gets the same aging reports and payment-application process.
Keeping vendor and customer records clean
Accounts payable and receivable aging reports are only as reliable as the vendor and customer records behind them. A vendor entered three different ways, or a customer with an old email and outdated payment terms on file, can split one relationship’s activity across multiple records — which makes an aging report look messier than the actual situation is, and makes it harder to tell what’s genuinely overdue.
Part of ongoing A/P and A/R support is watching for that kind of drift: consistent naming so the same vendor or customer doesn’t appear twice, merging duplicate records when they turn up, and keeping contact and payment-term information current. None of this changes what’s owed or due — it just makes sure the aging reports and balances reflect it accurately.
This matters more as a business adds vendors and customers. A handful of accounts is easy to keep straight by memory; a few dozen active vendors and customers is not, and that’s where clean, consistent records start doing real work.
Accounts payable and receivable questions
Do you decide which vendors get paid and when?
No. The business retains final approval over which bills get paid and when.
Does this turn our cash-basis books into accrual accounting?
No. Tracking open bills and invoices operationally doesn’t change the underlying accounting method established for the engagement.
We have recurring bills and invoices — subscriptions, retainers, ongoing service contracts. How are those tracked differently from one-off transactions?
Recurring bills and invoices get set up so the same vendor or customer, amount, and terms are recognized each cycle, rather than treated as a new transaction to research every time. That keeps the accounts payable and receivable aging reports accurate without extra manual entry each month.
What happens with partial payments or invoices paid in installments?
Partial payments get applied against the specific bill or invoice they belong to, and the remaining balance stays visible on the aging report until it’s paid in full. That way an installment payment doesn’t get mistaken for a fully paid or fully unpaid invoice.
Do you handle credit memos and returns?
Credit memos and returns are recorded and applied against the related vendor bill or customer invoice, so the outstanding balance reflects the credit rather than showing the original amount as still open.
We operate more than one entity and they share some of the same vendors. Can you keep that straight?
Yes. Each entity’s accounts payable and receivable are kept separate, even when the underlying vendor or customer is the same across entities, so balances and aging reports for one entity don’t pick up activity that belongs to another.
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