Definition
Accounts payable (AP) is a current liability on the balance sheet representing money the business owes to suppliers for goods or services received but not yet paid for. It is the bookkeeping mirror of accounts receivable: where AR is money owed to the business, AP is money owed by the business. Typical settlement is within 30 to 90 days according to the supplier’s payment terms.
What accounts payable means in practice
For most SMBs, the AP ledger is the second-busiest control account after the bank. Every supplier bill creates an AP entry; every supplier payment clears it. The AP balance at any point in time should match the open supplier invoices that have not yet been paid. When it does not, something is wrong: either a payment was posted twice, a bill is missing, or an invoice was posted to the wrong supplier.
The standard workflow in modern platforms: supplier invoice arrives by email or paper, the bookkeeper captures it with Hubdoc or Dext, the OCR extracts the supplier, date, amount, and tax, the bookkeeper confirms the tax invoice is valid and the coding is right, and the bill posts to Xero or QuickBooks as a draft. After approval, it sits in the AP ledger awaiting payment. The bank feed brings in the payment, which matches against the bill and clears the liability.
A practical example: a UK consultancy receives a 6,000 invoice from their hosting provider on 5 November with 30-day terms. The bookkeeper captures it, codes 5,000 to hosting expense and 1,000 to input VAT, and approves it. AP increases by 6,000. On 5 December the payment goes out via direct debit; the bank reconciliation matches the 6,000 against the open bill, clearing AP back to its prior position. Both the bill and the payment carry the supplier reference; the audit trail links them.
How accounts payable works by country
United Kingdom
VAT-registered businesses must keep AP records digitally under MTD, and the records must be retained for six years per VAT Notice 700/21. The Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 gives small business suppliers a statutory right to charge interest on overdue invoices at the Bank of England base rate plus 8%, plus a fixed sum of 40 to 100 depending on the invoice size. Most businesses pay before this triggers, but the right exists.
Australia
AP records must be retained for five years per ATO requirements. The Payment Times Reporting Scheme, active since 2021, requires large businesses with revenue above AUD 100 million to publish their average payment times to small business suppliers twice a year. This has noticeably shifted payment behaviour at the largest companies, which now pay small suppliers faster on average than they pay large suppliers.
Canada
AP records must be retained for six years per CRA. Each supplier invoice carrying a GST/HST input tax credit claim must meet the documentation thresholds set out in the Input Tax Credit Information Regulations: simplified at under CAD 100, intermediate at CAD 100-499.99, full at CAD 500+. AP entries lacking the required documentation have the input tax credit disallowed on audit.
New Zealand
AP records must be retained for seven years per IRD, the longest of our target jurisdictions. The April 2023 GST reforms renamed “tax invoice” to “taxable supply information” but left the AP record-keeping rules unchanged. Most accounting platforms surface the new terminology automatically once the locale is set to NZ.
Singapore
AP records must be retained for five years per ACRA. Section 199 of the Companies Act requires every Singapore-incorporated entity to keep accounting records sufficient to show and explain the company’s transactions, including the AP ledger. The penalty for non-compliance is up to SGD 5,000 plus director liability.
Related terms
Accounts payable is the liability side of the trade cycle:
- Accounts receivable is the mirror: money owed to the business by customers.
- Trade payables is the strict subset of AP for goods bought for resale.
- An accruals entry sits next to AP for liabilities incurred but not yet invoiced.
- A tax invoice is the underlying document for every AP entry that carries input tax.
- The mechanism for posting a bill is a journal entry.
- The AP control account is reconciled at period end as part of the wider reconciliation work.
See also
For the practical mechanics of recording supplier bills in Xero or QuickBooks see the record receipts in Xero guide.
FAQ
See the answered questions above for AP vs trade payables, the supplier-bill workflow, and current vs long-term liability classification.