A Payee is anyone you pay or anyone who pays you — vendors, clients, employees, contractors, the IRS. Tracking payees consistently lets you answer "how much did I spend at this vendor this year?" without manually grouping transactions.
Creating Payees
Manually — go to Payees → Add Payee and enter the name and optional details (email, 1099 status, default category).
On-the-fly — when entering a transaction, type a new payee name and Books offers to create it.
From a transaction — open any transaction, click the payee field, type the new name, and create-on-save.
Payee Fields
Name — display name (required)
Default category — Books will auto-suggest this category for future transactions with this payee
Email — for invoicing or contact reference
Address — for 1099 generation and printed checks
Tax ID — EIN or SSN, needed for 1099 reporting
1099 vendor — check if this payee should appear on year-end 1099-NEC reports
Merging Duplicate Payees
It's easy to end up with "AT&T", "AT&T Mobility", "ATT" all as separate payees. To merge:
Go to Payees and search for the variants.
Open one of the duplicates, click Merge, and pick the payee to merge INTO.
Books reassigns all transactions to the winning payee and deletes the merged one.
1099 Reporting
At year-end, Books generates a 1099 report for all payees flagged as 1099-eligible (typically contractors paid $600 or more during the year). The report includes:
Total amount paid to each 1099 payee
Their tax ID and address
A list of qualifying transactions
Books does not file 1099s with the IRS for you — it generates the data you (or your accountant) need to file. Most agencies file via a third-party 1099 e-file service or have their CPA handle it.