How to pay a single bill

This article explains how to record a payment that you've made to a supplier against a bill that you've added in FreeAgent.

To mark a bill as paid, you can either explain a bank transaction or enter a bank transaction manually.

If you’ve paid off more than one bill in a single payment, find out how to pay off multiple bills with one payment.

Explain a bank transaction

Once the relevant bank transaction for the supplier payment has been imported into your FreeAgent account via a bank feed or uploaded from a bank statement, you’ll need to explain it using the appropriate ‘Type’ and ‘Category’ as detailed below.

Navigate to the 'Banking' tab at the top of the screen and select 'Bank Accounts' from the drop-down menu.

Choose the relevant bank account from the list.

Select the transaction that relates to the supplier payment.

Select ‘Bill Payment’ from the ‘Type’ drop-down menu and select the relevant bill from the ‘Bill’ drop-down menu. Please note that ‘Bill Payment’ will only appear as an option if you have a bill which is open or overdue.

Select ‘Explain Transaction’ to complete the process.

A record of the bank transaction being explained will appear in your Audit Trail report.

Enter a bank transaction manually

If you don’t have a bank feed enabled and you're not uploading bank statements, you can either add a bank transaction manually to the bill or in the ‘Banking’ area of your FreeAgent account.

Adding a manual payment to the bill

Please note that this will add a manual bank transaction in your primary bank account in FreeAgent. Therefore, if you’ve not paid this bill from your primary bank account, don't use this option.

Navigate to the 'Bills' tab at the top of the screen.

Select the reference number of the relevant bill.

Select 'Add a manual payment'.

This will bring up a screen where you can enter a manual payment to pay this bill from your primary bank account, with the compulsory fields filled in for you. Choose which date you want the manual payment to be recorded in your accounts from the ‘Dated On’ field and select 'Create and Finish' at the bottom of the screen to complete the process.

Adding a manual bank transaction in the ‘Banking’ area

Alternatively, you can add a bank transaction manually to any of your bank accounts in FreeAgent.

Navigate to the 'Banking' tab at the top of the screen, select 'Bank Accounts' from the drop down menu and choose the relevant bank account from the list.

Navigate to the ‘More’ button and select ‘Add Transaction’ from the drop-down menu in the top-right.

Select ‘Bill Payment’ from the ‘Type’ drop-down menu, enter the date and the amount of the payment and select the relevant bill from the ‘Bill’ drop-down menu.

Select ‘Create and Finish’ at the bottom of the screen to complete the process.

Regardless of which way you enter the bank transaction manually, a record will appear in your Audit Trail report.