Hi there, osparkelo.

I admire you for coming back to the thread to add some clarification about receiving an inventory in QuickBooks Online. I'll be sharing information on how the Inventory works in QuickBooks Online. 

When you add products and services as items in QuickBooks, you give them a type, and one of them is to track Inventory. Then, once a vendor accepts a purchase order and sends the products, you'll have to record it as a bill or expense in QuickBooks. This is a way to increase the inventory and there's no other action to record the received inventory without using those entries mentioned.

Additionally, you can also use the inventory adjustment feature to increase/receive what you need. If you track inventory in QuickBooks Online, you can manually adjust an item's quantity without recording a purchase or sale, to match what is in your account.

On the other hand, QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop have their own separate platforms. There are features and functionalities that work differently, and they’re designed to operate independently. That said, QBDT has the option to receive inventory with or without a bill but QBO needs to enter the inventory as bill or expense. 

Lastly, you may open this article to view details on how to run a particular report that will reflect all payments made to vendors: Run a report with vendor totals.

Let me know if there's anything else you need with Inventory. I'm always here to help you anytime. Take care and keep safe!