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Vendor POs, cut tickets, contractor bills, freight and duty. 3-way matched in AIMS360, synced two ways with QuickBooks Online and Desktop.
Fabric mills, cut and sew contractors, dye houses, decorators, freight forwarders, customs brokers. A consumer brand's payables look nothing like a generic business's, so generic AP tools miss half of them. AIMS360 manages every vendor bill against the PO and the receipt that created it, then syncs two ways with QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop.
Accounts payable (AP) is the money your brand owes vendors for goods and services already received but not yet paid. It carries a credit balance and sits on the balance sheet as a current liability, because vendor terms in apparel usually run 30 to 90 days. For a consumer brand, AP is not just office bills. It is the fabric you cut last month, the contractor sewing your fall line, the dye house, the decorator, the container on the water, and the duty owed when it clears customs.
That is why AP belongs inside the ERP that already holds your vendor purchase orders, receipts, and inventory. When the bill, the PO, and the receipt live in the same system, every invoice can be verified against what you ordered and what showed up before a dollar goes out. AIMS360 is a consumer brands ERP serving ten categories, from fashion and footwear to beauty, outdoor and sporting goods, wellness, home, baby, and pet. For apparel brands specifically, AP means the production paper trail and the money trail finally match.
Six kinds of payables, one system. Each bill type matches against the PO or work order that created it, so costs land on the styles they belong to.
Purchase orders for finished goods, raw materials, and trims. The PO carries quantities, costs, and delivery dates, so the invoice has something to answer to.
Cutting work commissioned against a style. When the contractor bills, the charge ties to the cut ticket and the pieces that came back, not a vague expense line.
Embroidery, screen printing, embellishment. Decoration bills post against the work order, so decorated styles carry the true cost of the decoration.
Dye house runs billed by lot. Garment dye charges attach to the goods that went through the process, keeping dyed and undyed costs separate.
Sewing, finishing, pressing, packing. Contractor invoices match the work you commissioned and the goods received back, catching short deliveries before payment.
Carrier, forwarder, and customs broker bills captured in AP so every style reflects landed cost, not just the vendor's unit price.
3-way matching compares the purchase order, the receiving report, and the supplier invoice before a bill is approved. If the vendor billed for more than you ordered, or more than arrived, the mismatch is caught before payment.
Finished styles, materials and trims, cut tickets and production work, decoration, garment dye, or contractor jobs. The PO records what you agreed to pay.
The warehouse receives what arrives. Quantities, dates, and shortages are on record before any invoice shows up.
The supplier invoice is compared to the PO and the receipt. Price and quantity differences surface immediately, which stops overpayments, duplicate bills, and fraud.
Approved bills post to AP, including freight and duty allocations, and are ready to sync to your accounting system.
AIMS360 does not replace your accounting system. It feeds it clean numbers. The operational side of AP, vendor POs, receiving, 3-way matching, and posting, happens in AIMS360 next to your inventory and orders. Bills then sync two ways with QuickBooks Online or QuickBooks Desktop, where payments run and your bookkeeper reconciles the way they already work.
No re-keying invoices into two systems. No month-end hunt for which bills made it across. Because every bill originated from a matched PO and receipt, what lands in QuickBooks ties back to what happened in the warehouse. Brands on other platforms can connect through accounting integrations for NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Sage 100, and Xero, covering AR, AP, GL, and journal entries. Multi-currency and multi-division support and closing period lock keep the books clean as you grow.
The forwarder bills the ocean freight. The broker bills the duty. Neither invoice mentions your styles, but both are part of what those styles cost. AIMS360 accounts payable captures freight and duty so margin reports show landed cost, not a number that flatters you until the bank statement arrives.
| Cost component | Billed by | Example per unit |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor unit price (FOB) | Factory or supplier | $8.40 |
| Ocean or air freight | Carrier or forwarder | $0.62 |
| Duty and tariffs | Customs broker | $1.18 |
| Drayage and local delivery | Trucker | $0.14 |
| Landed cost per unit | What the style really cost | $10.34 |
Illustrative example. A style that looks like a 62% margin at FOB is a 53% margin at landed cost. Pricing decisions made on the first number get corrected by reality.
Accounts payable is what you owe vendors. Accounts receivable is what customers owe you. In apparel the gap between them is the whole cash flow story: you pay the factory months before the retailer pays you.
The questions brands and their bookkeepers ask about AP, 3-way matching, and the QuickBooks sync.
AR with aging and factor assignments, GL sync, multi-currency, closing period lock. The other half of the money.
Cut tickets, contractors, WIP tracking, and tech packs. Where the vendor obligations in this page begin.
QuickBooks Online and Desktop, NetSuite, Dynamics 365 Business Central, Sage 100, and Xero.
Vendor POs, cut tickets, contractor bills, freight and duty. Matched in AIMS360, paid in QuickBooks, tied out at month end. Serving consumer brands for 40+ years.
