Importing Outstanding Bills

Outstanding Bills is a Tier 2 (First Week) data type. Importing your unpaid vendor bills allows you to carry forward your accounts payable from a previous system so that your outstanding obligations are tracked from day one in AccuArk.

Before You Begin

• Prepare a CSV file with your outstanding bill data
• Make sure all vendors referenced in your file already exist in AccuArk — import your vendor list first if needed
• Each row in the CSV represents one bill (unlike invoices, bills use a single-row format)

Step-by-Step Import

1. Open the Data Exchange Center from the Business menu
2. Click Import on the Outstanding Bills card
3. Click Browse and select your CSV file
4. Click Next to proceed to column mapping
5. Ensure the following required fields are mapped:
   • Vendor Name — must match an existing vendor in AccuArk
   • Amount — the total bill amount (must be greater than zero)
6. Map optional fields as available (Bill Date, Due Date, Reference, Notes)
7. Click Next to validate
8. Review the validation results — check for vendor lookup failures and invalid amounts
9. Click Import to create or update the bills

Available Fields

How Upsert Works for Bills

The outstanding bills import supports upsert (update or insert) behavior. AccuArk uses the combination of Vendor Name and Reference to determine whether a bill already exists:

• If a bill with the same vendor name and reference already exists in AccuArk, that bill is updated with the values from the CSV row
• If no match is found, a new bill is created

This means you can safely re-import your bills file after making corrections in a spreadsheet. Existing bills (matched by vendor and reference) are updated, and new bills are added.

Important: For the upsert to work, both the Vendor Name and Reference fields must be present in your CSV. If a row has no reference value, AccuArk always creates a new bill for that row, even if a bill from the same vendor already exists.

How Bills Are Created

For each row in the CSV that does not match an existing bill:

• A new bill is created with the vendor, amount, dates, reference, and notes from the row
• The bill is assigned an Unpaid status
• If no Due Date is provided, it defaults to the Bill Date plus 30 days. If neither date is provided, the due date is set to 30 days from today.

Default Due Date

When the Due Date column is left blank or not mapped, AccuArk automatically sets the due date to 30 days after the bill date. This provides a standard Net 30 payment term as a default. You can always edit the due date on individual bills after import if different terms apply.

Common Issues

"Vendor not found" Error

The vendor name in your CSV does not match any vendor in AccuArk. Check for typos, extra spaces, or formatting differences. Import your vendor list first before importing bills.

Invalid Amount

The amount must be a positive number greater than zero. Check that the amount column does not contain currency symbols, commas used as thousand separators in non-standard formats, or text values.

Unintended Duplicates

If you import without a Reference value, each import creates a new bill. To take advantage of the upsert feature, always include a reference number so that AccuArk can detect existing bills.

Tips

• Import vendors first — Every bill must reference an existing vendor. Import your vendor list before importing bills.
• Include reference numbers — The reference field is key to the upsert mechanism. Including a reference (such as the original bill number or PO number) allows AccuArk to update existing bills instead of creating duplicates.
• Verify due dates — If your vendors have different payment terms, include explicit due dates in your CSV rather than relying on the 30-day default.
• Review after import — After importing, check the bills list in AccuArk to verify amounts and due dates match your records. Pay special attention to bills near their due date to avoid missed payments.