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Vendor Balances, Pay Bills & Print Checks

The Vendors section of the VMX Ledger covers the accounts-payable side of your books: seeing what you owe each vendor (Balances), reviewing what you've paid them (Payments), paying open bills (Pay Bills), and printing the checks (Print Checks). All of these live in the Ledger's slide-out menu, under the Vendors heading.

Availability

The Ledger (including Pay Bills and Print Checks) is enabled per-client by VMX — most stores use QuickBooks instead and will not see a Ledger tab in Admin. If you'd like to discuss using the VMX Ledger, contact help@vmxllc.com.

Within a store that has the Ledger enabled, each user also needs the GL admin permission (managed on the Admin → Permissions page). Some users may additionally be set up as view-only for payments — they'll see a banner reading "View Only: You can view bills but cannot make payments." (or "You can view checks but cannot print them." on Print Checks) and won't have a Pay or Print button.

Vendor Balances — what you owe each vendor

In Admin, click Ledger, open the slide-out menu on the left, and under Vendors choose Balances.

The Vendor Balances page lists every vendor with an open balance and a grand TOTAL at the bottom.

  • Click a vendor's name to open their transaction history in the Journal.
  • Click a vendor's Total amount to jump straight to Pay Bills filtered to that vendor.

For a bill-by-bill breakdown, choose Balances Detail from the menu instead. It lists each vendor's open bills with columns Ref No., Due Date, Original Amount, Open Balance, Discount, and Total, plus a total row per vendor. Under the Ref No. you'll also see the bill's memo and, when the bill came from a purchase order, a PO link with the PO's notes. Click a Ref No. to open the bill itself.

Vendor Payments — what you've paid each vendor

In Admin, click Ledger, open the slide-out menu, and under Vendors choose Payments.

The Vendor Payments report totals what you paid each vendor out of your bank and credit card accounts over a date range (defaults to the current month to date). Click Run after changing the dates. Click a vendor's name to see the individual payments in the Journal.

Pay Bills

In Admin, click Ledger, open the slide-out menu, and under Vendors choose Pay Bills.

  1. At the top of the page, set:
  2. Payment account — the bank or credit card account the payments come out of.
  3. Vendor — leave on All... to see every vendor's due bills, or pick one vendor.
  4. Payment Date — the date that will go on the payments/checks (defaults to today).
  5. Due Date — bills due on or before this date are listed (vendor credits always show). Push this date out to see bills due later.
  6. Starting Check # — pre-filled with the next check number for the selected payment account.
  7. Print later? — check this to record the payments now and print the checks later from the Print Checks page.
  8. Review the bill list. Every bill starts checked; uncheck any you don't want to pay this run. Columns show Payee, Ref No., Due Date, Original Amount, Open Balance, Gross Pay, Discount, and Net Payment.
  9. Adjust the Gross Pay amount on any line to make a partial payment (it defaults to the full open balance).
  10. If a bill has an early-pay discount, the Discount column shows the amount, and the checkbox next to it is pre-checked when the bill's due date is on or after your Payment Date (i.e., you're paying in time to earn it). Net Payment = Gross Pay minus any discount taken.
  11. The totals row shows how many invoices are selected and the total net payment.
  12. Click Pay.

VMX records one payment per vendor for the selected bills. Unless you checked Print later?, check printing starts immediately — see "Printing checks" below.

Printing checks — confirming the print and saving check numbers

When checks are sent to the printer (from Pay Bills or Print Checks), VMX asks "Did your checks print OK?"

  • Answer Yes when the checks came out correctly. The check numbers are saved the moment you answer Yes — counting up from your Starting Check #, with the last number remembered on the payment account. If any check paid more bills than fit on the check stub, VMX then offers "Print disbursement pages?" — a detail page listing every bill the check covered, to include with the payment. Print them now or answer No; either way the numbers are already recorded. To print disbursement pages later, open the payment in the Ledger — checks that need them have a Print Disbursement button next to Print Check on the transaction page.
  • Answer No if there was a printer jam or misprint. VMX then asks "How do you want to proceed?":
  • Reprint — generates the checks again using the same Starting Check # (fix your printer or check stock first). Since numbers aren't saved until you confirm a good print, the reprint uses the same numbering as the first attempt.
  • Delete Payments — (offered from Pay Bills) removes the payments entirely, so the bills go back to unpaid and you can start over.

Check numbers are only recorded after you confirm the print succeeded, so a misprint never burns numbers in VMX.

In Admin, click Ledger, open the slide-out menu, and under Vendors choose Print Checks.

This page lists every recorded payment and check that has not yet been assigned a check number — typically payments made in Pay Bills with Print later? checked.

  1. Select the Payment account the checks draw on (and optionally filter by Vendor).
  2. Confirm the Starting Check # — it pre-fills with the next number for the account. Load your check stock in the printer to match.
  3. Every check starts selected; uncheck any you don't want to print in this run. The totals row shows the count selected and the total dollar amount.
  4. Click Print.

After printing, confirm the "Did your checks print OK?" prompt (see "Printing checks" above) so the check numbers get saved.

Pay Bills and Print Checks error messages

  • "Missing Check Number" — "Please enter a starting check number before printing checks." You clicked Pay (without Print later? checked) or Print with an empty Starting Check # field. Enter the number of the first check loaded in your printer.
  • "Invalid Check Number" — "Please enter a numeric check number before printing checks." The Starting Check # field contains something other than a number. Enter digits only.
  • "Invalid Pay Amount" — "Please review your Gross Pay amounts to be sure they are correct." One of the Gross Pay fields on the Pay Bills page isn't a valid number (the bad field is highlighted in yellow). Fix the amount and click Pay again.