The Expenses by Vendor Summary in QuickBooks Online

The Expenses by Vendor Summary totals what you spent with each vendor over a period you choose. It is one row per vendor, one total for the period, and a grand total at the bottom for the whole range. Where the payables reports show what you still owe, this report summarizes the expenses and purchases recorded for each vendor during the period, which makes it a quick way to see where vendor spend was concentrated and who your largest suppliers were.

What the Expenses by Vendor Summary shows

The report covers a date range you set, such as a fiscal year, a quarter, or All Dates for the full history. For each vendor you paid or were billed during that range, it adds up the expense transactions to that vendor into a single figure. It does not split the total by transaction or by expense account; it stops at the top-line spend per vendor. To see the transactions that make up a vendor's total, you can drill into the number or run the Transaction Detail by Account report, and to see what you still owe rather than what you have spent, use the Vendor Balance Summary and Unpaid Bills.

Because it covers a period rather than a single date, what drives the report is the set of expense transactions to each vendor within the range you pick. One run captures one period, so keeping a copy per fiscal year is how you preserve the spend history.

Why a CPA or auditor asks for it

The report gives a fast, by-vendor read on the cost base of the business. An accountant uses it to review where spending concentrated before a return, to identify vendors to review for possible 1099 reporting, and to sanity-check expense categories against who was actually paid. A buyer or lender reads it to understand which suppliers the business depends on and how much it spends with each. It is a useful companion to the Vendor Balance Summary: one shows what you paid a vendor over time, the other shows what you still owe them as of a date, and together they cover both sides of your vendor relationships.

How to run and export the Expenses by Vendor Summary in QuickBooks Online

1. Go to the Reports menu and type "Expenses by Vendor Summary" into the report search box, then open it.
2. Set the report period to the range you want, such as a full fiscal year or All Dates for the complete history.
3. Run the report and confirm the total matches the spend you expect for that period.
4. Use the export control at the top of the report to export it to Excel or PDF. The file downloads to your computer.
5. Repeat for any other periods you want to keep, such as each prior fiscal year.

Our guide to exporting all your data from QuickBooks covers how the vendor reports fit with the rest of your records.

Keeping the Expenses by Vendor Summary after you cancel

You can include the Expenses by Vendor Summary in your Books Backup archive on request, and you can also export it yourself before you cancel. Saving it is worth the moment it takes, because a cancelled paid QuickBooks Online company goes read-only for 12 months and is then permanently deleted, a trial only 90 days, and the IRS generally expects business records to be kept for at least three years, and longer in some cases. A record of your expenses and purchases by vendor over the years is easy to keep now and hard to reconstruct once the company and its transactions are deleted.

Frequently asked questions

How is this different from the Vendor Balance Summary?

They answer opposite questions. The Expenses by Vendor Summary shows what you spent with each vendor over a period, while the Vendor Balance Summary shows what you still owe each vendor as of a date. Use this report to see historical spend, and the balance summary to see outstanding payables.

Does it show the bills I still owe?

No. This report summarizes your vendor expenses and purchases for the period; it is not an open-payables report. For the amounts still owed, use the Unpaid Bills report, which lists each open bill by vendor with its due date.

Can I see the individual transactions behind a vendor's total?

Yes. You can drill into a vendor's total in QuickBooks to see the transactions, or run the Transaction Detail by Account report for a fuller line-by-line view. Keeping the summary alongside that detail gives you both the totals and the transactions that support them before the company is gone.