In a double entry book-keeping system such as Accounts Payable, every credit must be offset by a debit. When you create a payable, you credit the single control account, which is typically a liability account, and debit one or more distribution accounts, which are typically expense accounts. Invoices often have more than one type expense, and in such cases you need to be able to distribute the payable amount to more than one account. In the case of a single distribution account, the entire payable amount is applied to the single account. In the case of multiple distribution accounts, the total of all the distributions must equal the payable amount.

 

Balance To Distribute

This is the payable amount minus the total distributions. It is updated as you add and delete distribution accounts, and modify amounts.

To change the account and amount, you can use one of the following commands.

 

Keyboard                Scroll to the account and press the Enter.        

Context Menu                Double left click the account.        

 

You can then modify the account and the amount. After you are done modifying the amount, hit the Enter or Tab key, and the Balance To Distribute field will be updated.

 

Account

This is the distribution account for the payable, which is the account that will be debited. If General Ledger is enabled, the account entered must be an active General Ledger account. In that case, the F5 key will bring up the General Ledger Account search screen, and from there you can pick the General Ledger account you want to. If General Ledger is disabled, you can enter any account.

 

 

Amount

This is the amount debited to the account. Enter a positive amount for an invoice, or a negative amount for a debit.  

 

Delete Account  

Click the "Delete Account" button to delete the current account.

 

New Account  

Click the "New Button" button to add a new account. When you add a new account, the account field will be populated with the default expense account for the current vendor, and the amount field will be populated with any remaining balance that requires distribution.