Have your accounts managed and pay on time
Unpaid supplier bills and missed payment deadlines are costing your business more than you think
Accounts payable management for small businesses in Melbourne
Packages start at just $150 per month & the first consultation is free.
Every supplier invoice that is not entered into your accounting software is a cost your business has incurred but cannot see, which means every profit figure you are looking at is wrong
If you are not managing accounts payable with a consistent process, you are making cash flow decisions based on what is in your bank account rather than what you actually owe, and those are two very different numbers
Supplier invoices that are not entered into your accounting software promptly mean input tax credits are being claimed later than they should be, costing your business the cash flow benefit of reclaiming GST that belongs to you, whether that delay is one quarter or several.
- Suppliers who are not paid on time eventually stop prioritising your business, and trade credit arrangements that took years to establish can be damaged in a matter of weeks by a payables process that is not being managed properly
- The profit and loss statement your accountant is producing from your records is only as accurate as the invoices that have actually been entered, and if your accounts payable is behind, the profitability it shows is overstated
- Every hour you spend manually chasing down invoices, trying to remember what was paid and what was not, or scrambling before a BAS deadline to work out what you owe is an hour that a bookkeeper would have prevented entirely with a process that runs consistently without your involvement
Get accounts payable for your business managed by a professional bookkeeper in Melbourne
Every bill your business receives is a financial obligation that needs to be entered, coded, scheduled and paid on time. When accounts payable is not being managed properly the consequences accumulate in ways that are not always immediately obvious.
- Suppliers begin chasing overdue payments.
- Trade credit arrangements that took years to establish are threatened by a pattern of late settlement.
- Input tax credits that the business is entitled to claim on the BAS go missing because invoices were never entered into the accounting software.
- The profit and loss statement begins showing a picture of profitability that does not reflect reality, because half the costs the business has actually incurred are sitting in a pile of unprocessed invoices rather than in the accounting system where they belong.
For most small business owners, accounts payable gets done when time permits. For a busy restaurant owner managing lunch and dinner service, a tradie running multiple jobs simultaneously, a dental practice principal seeing patients back to back, or a real estate agent focused on listings and appraisals, time for supplier invoice processing is consistently the thing that gets pushed to later. Later has a habit of becoming never, and the financial consequences of that pattern compound over time in ways that are difficult and expensive to unwind.
What a bookkeeper does to manage your accounts payable
Accounts payable is not simply paying bills when they arrive. It is the systematic process of capturing every supplier invoice, verifying it against what was ordered or received, entering it into the accounting software with the correct coding and GST treatment, allocating it a due date, and ensuring payment is made before that date.
Done correctly and consistently, it gives the business owner a clear and current picture of exactly what is owed and when. Done poorly, or not at all, it produces a financial position that looks significantly better than it actually is until the phone rings with a supplier calling about an account that is sixty days overdue.
Every invoice must be coded to the correct expense account in the chart of accounts and have the correct GST treatment applied. An invoice coded to the wrong account distorts the profit and loss statement by putting costs in the wrong category, making it impossible to understand where money is actually going.
A GST-inclusive invoice entered without the correct GST treatment means the input tax credit entitlement is lost on the BAS, which is money the business was legally entitled to claim but did not because the invoice was not processed correctly. A bookkeeper who codes invoices correctly and consistently from the start ensures that every financial report produced from the software reflects the actual cost structure of the business rather than an approximation of it.
In both Xero and MYOB, supplier invoices can be submitted digitally rather than handled as physical paper. In Xero, the bills section allows invoices to be uploaded directly or forwarded by email to a dedicated inbox address, where the system reads the document and pre-fills the bill details ready for review and approval before posting.
MYOB Capture works in a similar way, automating the data extraction from emailed or uploaded invoices and queuing them for processing. For businesses that need to capture smaller receipts on the go, such as fuel dockets and cash purchases, Hubdoc integrates with Xero and allows photos to be taken from a phone and submitted for coding.
The technology makes the accounts payable process more efficient and reduces manual data entry, but it still requires someone who understands how to configure the workflows correctly, review what the system has extracted, and apply professional judgement before anything is posted to the accounts. Automation that runs without review simply processes errors at scale rather than catching them.
Each invoice is allocated a due date based on the supplier’s payment terms, and a bookkeeper managing accounts payable maintains a clear aged payables position at all times, showing what is current, what is due in the coming week, and what has already passed its due date. Rather than manually keying individual payment amounts into online banking for every supplier, both MYOB and Xero can generate an ABA file, which is a batch payment file uploaded directly to the bank to pay multiple suppliers in a single transaction.
A bookkeeper prepares this file, confirms the amounts and bank details, and provides it ready for upload so that a week’s worth of supplier payments can be authorised and processed in minutes rather than hours.
What happens when accounts payable is not managed correctly
The most immediate consequence of poorly managed accounts payable is a profit and loss statement that cannot be trusted. When supplier invoices are not entered promptly, the costs those invoices represent are absent from the accounts. The business appears more profitable than it is, and decisions about pricing, hiring, investment and cash flow are made on figures that do not reflect what has actually been spent.
For a restaurant owner trying to understand whether the food cost percentage is sustainable, or a tradie trying to assess the profitability of individual jobs, an incomplete payables ledger makes those assessments unreliable from the outset.
The second consequence is the GST position on the BAS. Every GST-inclusive supplier invoice represents an input tax credit entitlement that reduces the net GST payable to the ATO. A business that is not entering supplier invoices promptly is systematically underclaiming its input tax credit entitlements every quarter. Over a full financial year, that accumulated underclaim can represent a material amount of money that the business paid to the ATO but was not required to.
The third consequence is the supplier relationships that make the business function. Suppliers who are not paid on time eventually restrict credit, add late payment fees, or redirect their priority service to customers who pay reliably. For a restaurant dependent on consistent daily food supply, or a building company relying on materials delivered when a job requires them, the operational impact of a damaged supplier relationship can exceed the cost of the invoice itself by a significant margin.
In one of our case studies, a mortgage broking business had no accounts payable process in place at all. Bills and broker commissions were being paid ad hoc directly from the bank with no system for tracking what was owed, when it was due, or whether it had been paid.
The result was missed payments, unhappy suppliers, and a financial position that was impossible to understand from the records alone. I implemented a Xero accounts payable process and ABA file payment system, bringing the payables under control and saving the business $500 per month compared to the previous arrangement.
How a bookkeeper can manage accounts payable for Melbourne businesses
Matthew Powell manages accounts payable for small businesses across Melbourne and nationally, working within MYOB, Xero and QuickBooks. He works with businesses across a wide range of industries including restaurants and cafes, dental and medical practices, real estate agencies, consultancies, tradies and construction businesses, and professional service firms of all types.
The process is designed to be low friction for the business owner. Invoices are submitted by email or through the platform’s capture tool, entered promptly, coded correctly to the right account with the correct GST treatment applied, and scheduled for payment so that nothing falls overdue and the payables position is visible and current at all times.
As a registered BAS agent, Matthew ensures that every invoice entered carries the correct GST treatment, so that the input tax credit position on each quarterly BAS reflects the business’s full legal entitlement rather than an undercount produced by invoices that were never processed. The accounts payable records he maintains are the foundation of an accurate BAS, and an accurate BAS is the foundation of a business that is not overpaying GST quarter after quarter without realising it.
Accounts payable management is available as a standalone service or as part of a broader bookkeeping package that includes bank reconciliation, payroll, BAS lodgment and financial reporting.
Packages start from $150 per month and the first consultation is free.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get my invoices to you?
Invoices can be submitted by email or through the document capture tool connected to your accounting software. Xero users can use Hubdoc, which is included free with most Xero plans, and MYOB users can use MYOB Capture. Both tools allow you to photograph or forward invoices directly into the system where they are queued for processing. The process takes less than a minute per invoice from your end and creates a permanent digital record of every document from the moment it arrives.
Can you process payments as well as enter invoices?
Matthew prepares ABA payment files for upload to your bank, processes batch payments in Xero or MYOB where authorised, and can manage the full payment workflow on your behalf. The business owner retains final authorisation over all payments so that Matthew prepares and schedules while you review and release, maintaining full control over what goes out of the account.
What if we have invoices going back months that have not been entered?
Catch-up accounts payable is a standard part of the service and something Matthew has done many times for businesses across a range of industries. Regardless of how far behind the payables position is, he can bring it current, identify any missing invoices, reconcile supplier statements against the accounting records, and establish a process that keeps the payables current going forward so the situation does not recur.
Do you work with our existing accounting software? Yes. Matthew works within MYOB, Xero and QuickBooks and does not require any business to change platforms to work with him. If the current setup is not configured correctly or is creating inefficiencies, that will be identified and addressed as part of the onboarding process with the business owner’s agreement before any changes are made.