Hi shelly-wilsonair,

I can help you sort out these transactions. Customers and vendors, as well as the related transactions, are separate from each other in QuickBooks. That means there isn't a way to apply a vendor credit to a customer invoice. If you have a bill and an invoice, each would be closed out independently from one other without the use of any credits to offset one another.

I want to make sure you're handling your transactions as needed, so I encourage you to reach out to your accountant to make sure everything is as entered correctly. Perhaps our accountant users here in community can help shed some light on this situation, too.

Vendor credits mean that you've overpaid the vendor or have returned a product to them. For this, they've given you a credit for your next bill so that you don't pay as much. Read the manage supplier credits article to learn more. I suspect that you may not even need it in this case since it sounds like it could have been created to account for the difference from your customer and vendor transactions. It's for this reason that I recommend speaking with your accountant.

As for your open customer invoice, simply record a payment using the steps outlined in the how to create an invoice article to close out that transaction.

If you're not feeling certain about what you need to do, your accountant can even be added as an accountant user to take a closer look at how things are currently set up. That way they'll be able to see the best way to move forward. QuickBooks Online can also help you find an accountant through the Find a pro to help tool in the My Accountant tab.

I hope that helps. Let me know if you have more tech questions about QuickBooks!