Project Report - Project Cost by vendor.

A purchase order is a non-posting transaction, while a bill is a posting transaction. Because certain default project reports combine both expected and actual costs to show a complete project history, your costs appear twice.

QuickBooks locks core transaction filters on default project summaries to protect the report's structural template. The cash accounting basis automatically removes unpaid bills because it recognizes expenses when money actually leaves your bank account.

To fix your data without losing your unpaid accrual-basis costs, you need to link the existing open purchase order to your bill. This tells QuickBooks that the bill fulfills that order, automatically hiding the PO from your active costs.

You can link them by following these steps:

1. Click + New and select Bill.
2. Choose the project vendor from the dropdown.
3. In the right-hand drawer, find your open $2,500 purchase order and click Add.
4. Review the details and click Save and close.

Once linked, QuickBooks recognizes the bill as the final actual cost. It closes the purchase order, removes the expected duplicate, and correctly keeps your single actual expense on your accrual report.

To make sure we are on the same page, could you share the specific name of the project report you generated?

Please let us know if you need help with any of these steps or if you run into any other issues.