Vendor Account Ledger
Point the Account Ledger at a vendor and it reads the other direction: their bills as charges, your payments against them, vendor memos as credits — a dated statement of what you owe and how it's moved. Same screen as the customer ledger, opened from the vendor's account record.
Access you'll need. Any REDA Financials permission set can open a vendor's ledger and read it; what you see is limited to the records your role can read.
Reading it from the payables side
- The Ledger Summary's payables tiles — including Total Liabilities — headline what you owe; the ledger's Transaction Detail tells the story bill by bill, payment by payment, with a running net position.
- Every row links to its document — the invoice you're querying, the payment that half-covered it, the memo that adjusted it.
- Entity selector and date range scope the story; Export PDF produces the statement for reconciling against the vendor's own statement of account — the classic AP month-end exercise, now one comparison instead of an archaeology dig.
- Customer-and-vendor accounts show both sides in one ledger, netting to the true position — exactly what you want before anyone proposes offsetting balances.
The position cards, payables reading
| Card | On a vendor, it means… |
|---|---|
| Total Outstanding | The open balance across the vendor's posted bills — shown negative, because it's money owed to them. |
| Unapplied Payments | Money you've paid that isn't matched to any bill — advances, deposits, or matching work waiting to be done. |
| Unapplied Memos | Vendor credit you hold but haven't used against bills yet. |
| Net Outstanding | The true position once unapplied money and credit are counted — the number for the phone call. |
Meridian's janitorial vendor CityClean Services reads like the everyday case: eleven dated rows — each month's bill, each check or transfer — and a Net Outstanding of −2,200. Scanning the running Balance column finds the story in seconds: April's bill never met a payment, and the balance stopped clearing right there. That scan-the-balance move is the whole skill of reading a party ledger.
One screen, two directions
This is the same Account Ledger the customer article describes — one unified tool, not two. Pointed at a customer it reads receivable-side; pointed at a vendor, the payables documents (bills, your payments, vendor memos) are presented from your position, so what you owe shows negative and a zero balance means you're square. For accounts that are customer and vendor, both sides land in one dated stream netting to the true position — which is exactly the number you want on the table before anyone proposes offsetting balances. The ledger shows posted documents only, and the system's internal control-account movements and application records are filtered out so the running balance stays a clean net position.
Reading the columns
| Column | On a vendor ledger |
|---|---|
| Date | When the bill, payment or memo hit the books — the rows run in date order, which is what makes the balance scannable. |
| Description | The posting's plain-language story ("Janitorial services — June 2026"), including the account it touched. |
| Reference | The document number, as a link — one click opens the bill or the payment itself. |
| Charges / Payments | The two directions of the relationship: their bills on one side, your money out on the other. |
| Balance | Your running net position after each event — where it stops clearing is where the story is. |
Amounts display in the selected entity's currency (the screen says so, next to the filters), so the statement you read is the statement the vendor's own accountant can check against.
The month-end move: vendor statement reconciliation
Open the ledger for the statement's period
Set the entity the vendor bills and the From/To dates matching their statement. Refresh if you've been posting this morning.
Read the two documents side by side
Their invoice missing from your rows: did it never arrive, or is it sitting unposted? Your payment missing from theirs: in transit, or applied to the wrong account at their end? Each difference is a to-do, and each of your rows links to its document for the evidence.
Export PDF and close the loop
Send your statement back with the differences annotated. A dated, system-generated statement ends "our records show…" debates faster than any email thread.
Common mistakes to avoid
| Mistake | Why it hurts | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Reading the negative amounts as errors | Negative is the payables direction — money owed or paid to the vendor; "fixing" it invents problems | Learn the convention once: negative = you owe them; zero = square |
| Paying a statement line without checking Unapplied Payments | Money you already sent but never matched makes you pay twice | Read the cards before the payment run; apply the unmatched payments first (Applying Disbursements) |
| Reconciling against the wrong entity's ledger | Each of your companies has its own relationship with the vendor — the "missing" bill may simply be another entity's | Match the entity selector to the entity the vendor's statement addresses |
| Treating the vendor's statement as the truth to book against | Their statement is their books — errors and all | Reconcile: your ledger vs theirs, difference by difference, document by document |
| Hunting the ledger for a bill still in Draft | The ledger reflects posted reality only | Post the bill (or find it in the entry queue) — then it appears |
Where to go next
- Vendor Account Ledger — the full walkthrough
- AP Aging — what you owe, by lateness.
- Customer Account Ledger — the mirror image.
Frequently asked questions
Yes — one Account Ledger, reading whichever side the account has. That's a feature: one tool to learn, and combined customer-and-vendor accounts get one honest net position instead of two half-stories.
Aging is the across-vendors lateness view — how much is due, how overdue, bucket by bucket. The ledger is one vendor's complete history with a running balance. Plan the payment run from aging; resolve a specific vendor's question from the ledger.
The entity selector includes an All Entities view in corporate currency for the whole-group net. For reconciling against the vendor's statement, use the specific entity they bill — that's the books their account lives in.
Click the row's Reference to open the bill or payment itself; the document carries its postings. The ledger keeps the debit/credit plumbing out of view on purpose — it's the relationship statement, not the GL.
Reconcile before conceding: their unposted-by-you invoice, your in-transit payment, or credit they haven't recorded explain almost every gap. Export your PDF for the period, line their statement up against it, and work the differences — that's the month-end exercise in the steps above.
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