Tracking Vendor Balances at the GL Level

Addsworth Accounting lets you track who you owe by tagging journal lines with a vendor. Tagged lines drive the AP by Vendor report, which groups your Accounts Payable activity by counterparty so you can see each vendor's net payable position.

Who is this for?

Solo accountants, bookkeepers and small-business owners who need to see what they owe each vendor. Addsworth Accounting totals the balances by vendor from tagged journal lines. It does not enter documents and does not match payments to specific purchases.

Prerequisites

• A company created in Addsworth Accounting (see Getting Started with Addsworth Accounting).
• An AP control account in your Chart of Accounts, the GL account where you record amounts you owe (see Setting Up Your Chart of Accounts).

What Vendor Tracking Provides

Vendor tracking gives you GL-level totals per vendor; it does not produce documents or schedule payments. You get:

• A Vendor record (name, contact details, province or territory, GST/HST number).
• An optional vendor tag on a journal line.
• The AP by Vendor report (period activity, GL-grouped).
• CSV or JSON import of the vendor list.

Working with foreign-currency vendors. Addsworth Accounting records every transaction in Canadian dollars. If a vendor bills you in a foreign currency, decide on the CAD equivalent at the time of the transaction (for example, using your bank's posted rate) and enter that CAD amount. To record a gain or loss arising from a later settlement, post a manual journal entry against the appropriate account.

Step 1: Designate Your AP Control Account

An AP control account is the liability account that holds the total amount you owe to your vendors. In a typical Canadian SME chart that is account 2010, Accounts Payable, but you can use any liability account. A company has one active AP control account.

1. Open Chart of Accounts from the sidebar.
2. Open the account you want to use as your AP control account (or add a new one).
3. In the Subledger Role section of the editor, turn on AP Control Account.
4. Tap Save.

Tip: An account can be either an AR control account or an AP control account, but not both. The toggles automatically clear each other when you select one.

If you import your Chart of Accounts from CSV or JSON, you can flag AP control accounts directly in the file using the isAPControlAccount column or field. The bundled CoA template demonstrates the flag on the Accounts Payable row.

Step 2: Add Vendors

1. Open Settings → Counterparties → Vendors.
2. Tap the + button to add a new vendor.
3. Enter the Name (required) and any optional contact details.
4. Optionally enter the vendor's GST/HST Number and choose its Province/Territory.
5. Tap Add.

Import on your Mac.

Use Settings → Import / Export Data → Customers & Vendors → Manage Customers & Vendors… Import a CSV or JSON file. A row with the name of an existing vendor, archived or not, updates that vendor. Match-on-name lookups are case-insensitive.

Archiving a vendor

A vendor you no longer trade with is archived rather than deleted, so the entries tagged with it stay readable. An archived vendor is hidden from the Vendors list and from every vendor picker; its transactions stay on the books.

• Right-click or long-press a row and choose Archive. A vendor with no linked entries is deleted instead.
• Turn on Show Archived in the toolbar to list archived records beside the live ones. They are drawn in secondary text and still open their editor.
• To bring one back, choose Unarchive on the row, or open its editor and turn Active back on.

Step 3: Tag Journal Lines with a Vendor

Tag lines on your Mac. A companion shows the tag and does not change it.

Vendor tagging is purely optional, and only makes sense on lines posted to an AP control account.

1. Create or open a journal entry (see Creating Journal Entries).
2. Add a line and select your AP control account in the GL Account field.
3. A Vendor picker appears under that line. Choose a vendor, or None. Add a new vendor first in Settings → Counterparties → Vendors.
4. Enter the debit or credit amount as usual, then save or post the journal.

You can also choose the vendor once in the Counterparty & Place of Supply panel. Each untagged AP control line then takes that vendor.

On the Mac, you can change the vendor of a posted journal that is not reversed. Tap Save Counterparty.

Tip: A line cannot be tagged with both a customer and a vendor, the picker switches based on the GL account's subledger role. If you tag a line and later remove the AP-control flag from the GL account, the tag remains on the data but the AP by Vendor report no longer surfaces it.

Step 4: Read the AP by Vendor Report

1. Open Reports from the sidebar.
2. Select the AP by Vendor report.
3. Choose your reporting period and run the report.

The report shows one row per vendor with the net amount posted to your AP control account in the period. Draft journals are not counted. The last line is Total Payable Activity. Lines posted to AP control accounts that you did not tag with a vendor are aggregated into an (Unassigned) bucket. Inactive vendors appear with an (inactive) suffix.

The report total ties exactly to the period activity of the AP control account on your Trial Balance for the same date range, this is your reconciliation check.

What this report is not: It is not an aged-AP report. It does not age balances.

Common Workflows

Recording a vendor purchase on credit

• Debit an expense (or asset) account.
• Apply your input-tax-credit code on the expense line; the AP-control line itself is tax-free.
• Credit your AP control account, tagged with the vendor.
• Enter the AP credit as the total you owe, tax included. The editor adds the tax line under the expense line, and the journal balances when the totals are equal.

Recording a vendor payment

• Debit the AP control account, tagged with the same vendor.
• Credit your bank account.

The two journals net to zero for that vendor once both are posted within the same reporting period.

What's Next

• Tracking Customer Balances at the GL Level: Mirror these steps for amounts owed to you.
• Setting Up Your Chart of Accounts: Add additional control accounts or restructure your AP section.
• Creating Journal Entries: Master the broader journal workflow.
• Running Financial Reports: Cross-check the AP by Vendor total against your Trial Balance.
• Importing Data: Chart of Accounts & Opening Balances: Bulk-load vendors and CoA control flags.