Using Accounts Payable consists of 3 steps:

1. Entering (accruing) the invoice (account payable).
   
2. Paying the invoice (relieving the payable)
   
3. Reconciling the Accounts Payable account.
   

Step One: Entering Accounts Payable
Enter each invoice received for payment in the Accounts Payable account (a liability account). It sounds like you've already done this. The account distribution will be the appropriate expense account (or asset, if applicable).

Step Two: Paying the Bills
Since you're writing checks to pay the bills, you need to do this in the appropriate checking account. That is, go to Transaction Activity and select a checking account. As you have already found out, you can't do this step in the Accounts Payable account.

• Make an entry in the Checking Account to print a check to the vendor.
  
• Since you've already recorded the expense, the account distribution is to the same Accounts Payable account you used in step one.
  
• Be sure to go back to the Accounts Payable account and change the status of each transaction for which you have made payment to Clr (Cleared).
  

Step Three: Reconciling Accounts Payable
The best way to review outstanding accounts payable is to review the Transactions by Account report for the accounts payable account. Be sure to make sure that the report options are set as follows:

• Print Transaction Detail - not selected
  
• Print Charges/Deposits Total - not selected
  
• Print Transactions Total - selected
  
• Print Summary by Payee/Payor - selected (very important!)