If you receive items from a supplier and have not been invoiced for them, you may not know the actual amount payable to the supplier. However, if you stock these items, you will need to add them to your on‑hand stock before you can sell them. But, as you don’t know the amount payable, you shouldn’t record an amount owed to the supplier at this time.

Instead, you can record the receipt of these items using a purchase transaction with a receive item status. When you record a purchase with a receive item status, you enter an estimated purchase amount, which is then allocated to a creditors accrual account. Your accounts payable is not affected at this time.

Later, when your supplier bills you for the items, you can record a purchase with the actual purchase amount. When you record the purchase, the actual purchase amount is allocated to your accounts payable and the estimated amount is removed from the accrual account.

Before you can record items received without a supplier invoice, you need to set up the accrual account for them.