Creating a vendor

Vendors are the companies or people you buy services and products from, like your landlord, the office supply store, or a computer repair technician. In QuickBooks, you create a vendor record to keep track of the information about one of your real-life vendors. QuickBooks uses that information to fill out bills, vendor credits, and other vendor-related transactions. Just like with customers, the Vendor Center is the best way to create a new vendor. On the homepage, click the Vendors button.

Then in the Vendor Center, click New Vendor and choose New Vendor on the dropdown menu. In the New Vendor dialog box, the Vendor Name is a field to identify a vendor. You can type a code or the full vendor name in the box. You can use the same name in the Vendor Name and Company Name box if you want. Leave the Opening Balance box empty. The best way to get a vendor's balance into QuickBooks is to create bills for the money that you owe.

Then you can fill in the rest of the contact information on the Address Info tab, just as you do for customers as you learned earlier in this chapter. On the Additional Info tab, the Account Number box is for the account number the vendor assigns to you. You can usually find it somewhere on the bills that the vendor sends. You can categorize vendors with a Vendor Type. QuickBooks provides several types out of the box, but you can create your own just like you do with customer types.

The Terms list is the same list of terms that you see when you create a customer. You can choose the terms or create a new set of terms if you want. The Credit Limit box is for the credit limit that the vendor extends to you as a customer. The Tax ID is the vendor's tax ID. For example, if you have to fill out a 1099 for the vendor at the end of the year. The Account Prefill tab has three fields to help you fill in vendor bills.

If you make purchases, they go to specific expense accounts. You can choose up to three accounts in these boxes. For example, for your computer technician, you might choose Repairs and Maintenance in one and Office Supplies in another. Then when you create a bill for the vendor, QuickBooks fills in those accounts automatically. When you're ready to save the vendor, click OK. The vendor appears in the Vendor list ready for you to choose when it's time to record the bills you receive.