For QuickBooks Online Essentials, Plus and Advanced
Import Bills into QuickBooks Online and Upload PDF Invoices as Bills
QuickBooks Online imports bills from a CSV, not from a PDF. PayablesAgent reads your PDF and scanned vendor invoices, line items included, and hands you that CSV, so a month of bills goes in with one import instead of one form at a time.
From $49 a month. Line items are read on every plan.
Upload a vendor bill and see the rows you would import
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The short answer
QuickBooks Online can import bills in bulk, but only from a CSV or Excel file and only on Essentials, Plus or Advanced. The file needs Bill no., Supplier, Bill Date, Due Date, Account and Line Amount on every row, and Intuit recommends batches of up to 100 bills.
Your vendors do not send CSVs. They send PDFs. So the job is getting from a folder of PDF invoices to that file without retyping, and that is the step PayablesAgent does: it reads vendor, invoice number, dates, terms, tax, totals and each line into rows you check and export.
QuickBooks' own Receipts tab also reads an uploaded PDF, one document at a time, into a draft you review. That suits a few bills a week. A bookkeeper with 200 multi-line bills a month needs the batch route.
What the QuickBooks Online bill import file looks like
One row per bill line. A two-line invoice is two rows with the same Bill no., Supplier and Bill Date, which is how QuickBooks knows they belong to one bill. Column rules are from Intuit's "Import your bills" help article, checked October 12, 2026.
| Bill no. | Supplier | Bill Date | Due Date | Account | Line Amount | Line Tax Code |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| INV-20418 | Midwest Paper Supply | 10/01/2026 | 10/31/2026 | Supplies | 412.50 | Non |
| INV-20418 | Midwest Paper Supply | 10/01/2026 | 10/31/2026 | Freight In | 38.00 | Non |
| 7781 | Lakeside Janitorial | 10/03/2026 | 10/18/2026 | Cleaning | 640.00 | Non |
Accounts must exist first
Every value in the Account column has to match an account already in your chart of accounts. Add new ones before the import.
New suppliers are optional
A checkbox on the upload screen adds suppliers that do not exist yet. Handy for new vendors, risky for typos, so clean the Supplier column first.
No items, only accounts
The bill import posts to accounts. Product and service items are not imported, so inventory receipts still go through Bills by hand.
How each extracted field lands in the import
PayablesAgent exports the invoice header (vendor, number, dates, totals) and the line table. You arrange them into the seven QuickBooks columns once in Excel, save that layout, and reuse it every month.
The Account column is the one piece the invoice cannot tell you. Most bookkeepers keep a small vendor to account lookup sheet: Midwest Paper Supply goes to Supplies, Lakeside Janitorial to Cleaning. A VLOOKUP fills the column in seconds.
On the Plus plan, custom templates let you name the exact fields you want back, so the export already matches your sheet.
| Read from the invoice | QuickBooks Online import column | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Invoice number | Bill no. | Repeat on every line row |
| Vendor name | Supplier | Match your supplier list spelling |
| Invoice date | Bill Date | Pick the date format on the mapping screen |
| Due date or terms | Due Date | Net 30 becomes Bill Date plus 30 days |
| Line description | Account | Through your vendor to account lookup |
| Line amount | Line Amount | One row per line, or one row with the total |
| Sales tax on the invoice | Line Tax Code | Only needed when sales tax is turned on |
| Freight, fees, discounts | Extra line rows | Post to their own accounts |
| Invoice total | Check only | Sum of lines should equal it |
From PDF invoices to QuickBooks Online bills in five steps
- 1
Collect the month's PDFs
Save the invoices vendors email you and scan paper bills to PDF at 300 dpi. One folder per QuickBooks company keeps client work separate.
- 2
Extract them in one upload
Drop the batch into the tool above. Each invoice comes back with its header fields and every line as a row, ready to check against the original.
- 3
Shape the CSV
Export to Excel, arrange the seven columns, fill Account from your lookup sheet, and save as CSV. Split anything over 100 bills into a second file.
- 4
Run Import data, Bills
In QuickBooks Online select Settings, Import data, Bills, browse to the file, tick the new suppliers box if you want it, map the fields and the date format, then map tax codes.
- 5
Review and pay as usual
Check the summary, start the import, and the bills appear in Expenses, Bills ready for approval and payment. Attach the PDFs to the bills that need an audit trail.
Three ways to upload invoices to QuickBooks Online
All three end with a bill in QuickBooks. They differ in how many bills you can move at once and how much of each invoice you still type.
Manual
Type each bill
New, Bill, then every field and line by hand. No setup, and fine under about 20 one-line bills a month.
Best for a handful of bills
Built in
Receipts tab upload
Upload PDFs, snap them in the mobile app or email them to your QuickBooks forwarding address. Each one becomes a draft in For Review that you turn into a bill or expense one at a time.
Best for a few bills a week
Batch
Extract, then import
PayablesAgent reads the whole batch, line items included, into a CSV. One bill import creates up to 100 bills with all their lines.
Best from about 50 bills a month
Who imports bills instead of typing them
Bookkeepers with several QBO clients
Month-end catch-up for a client who emails a zip of 150 PDFs. One extraction, one CSV per client file, one import each.
Small businesses with multi-line suppliers
Food, building supply and janitorial invoices often split across accounts. Line rows keep supplies, freight and fees on the right accounts.
Teams moving from Desktop to Online
Open bills from the old file or a backlog in PDF can come across as an import instead of being rekeyed during the cutover.
Owners who pay bills from QuickBooks
If you already pay through QuickBooks Bill Pay or your bank, you do not need a separate AP platform, only the bills entered correctly.
What it costs to stop keying bills into QuickBooks Online
The QuickBooks bill import itself is included in Essentials, Plus and Advanced. PayablesAgent is the extraction step, priced by page with line items included and no per-user fee on the seats a plan includes.
Starter
$49/mo
One seat, 2,500 Base pages and 500 Pro pages a month. Covers a business posting a few hundred bills.
Plus
$149/mo
Three seats, 10,000 Base pages, custom templates for your column layout. Built for bookkeeping practices.
Pro
$499/mo
Volume tiers from 35,000 pages, API access and up to five seats, for AP teams feeding QuickBooks from many entities.
When you do not need this
If you enter fewer than 20 bills a month, the Receipts tab or plain typing is enough. If you are on Simple Start, the bill import is not part of your plan, so you would upgrade to Essentials first. And if most of your bills are inventory purchases on items, remember the import only posts to accounts.
If you also want approvals and vendor payments in one place, compare full platforms in our guide to accounts payable software for small business. Still on Desktop? The scan invoices into QuickBooks Desktop page covers the importer you need there.
Questions about importing bills into QuickBooks Online
Can you import bills into QuickBooks Online?
Yes, on QuickBooks Online Essentials, Plus and Advanced. Go to Settings, Import data, Bills, and upload a CSV or Excel file with Bill no., Supplier, Bill Date, Due Date, Account and Line Amount, plus Line Tax Code when sales tax is on. Intuit recommends no more than 100 bills per import.
Can I import PDF invoices into QuickBooks Online?
Not as a batch of bills. The Import data screen only takes CSV or Excel. A PDF uploaded to the Receipts tab becomes one draft transaction for review. To bring in a batch of PDF vendor invoices as bills, extract them to a CSV first, then run the bill import.
How do I upload invoices to QuickBooks Online?
For a few vendor invoices, upload the PDFs in the Receipts tab and create a bill from each draft. For dozens a month, extract the invoices to a CSV with one row per bill line, then use Settings, Import data, Bills to create them all in one pass and attach the PDFs afterwards.
Can you scan bills into QuickBooks Online?
Yes. Scan to PDF, then upload the scan in the Receipts tab, snap it with the mobile app, or email it to your QuickBooks forwarding address. QuickBooks drafts one transaction per document. For multi-line bills in volume, run the scans through an extraction tool and import the CSV as bills.
How many bills can you import into QuickBooks Online at once?
Intuit recommends no more than 100 bills per import. A bill can have many lines, and each line row must repeat the Bill no., Supplier and Bill Date so QuickBooks groups the lines into one bill. Larger months simply run as several imports of 100.
Turn this month's PDF bills into one QuickBooks import
Upload a batch, check the rows, and compare the time with entering them one by one.
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