Payments

A payment records money that actually moved: a customer paying for a delivery, you paying your propane supplier, or a refund in either direction. A payment settles invoices by being applied to them, so this page is where a check, card payment or bank transfer is entered and matched to the bills it pays.

What kinds of payment there are

A payment is Draft while you enter it and decide where it goes, Posted once the money is booked, and Voided if it was reversed.

How to record a customer's payment when a check, card payment or bank transfer comes in

1. Open Payments under Invoicing and choose Add Payment. You can also start from an invoice's Payment button, from Receive Payment on the Receivables page, or from Receive payment on the customer's page in Accounts; each of these fills in the customer and invoices for you.
2. Choose Payment from Customer, then the customer under Counterparty.
3. Enter the Payment Date, the Bank / Cash Account the money went into, the amount, and a Reference such as the check number.
4. Save. The Apply to invoices table lists the customer's open invoices, the oldest due date first.
5. Choose Auto apply to spread the payment across those invoices, oldest due first, or type the amount for each invoice yourself.
6. Choose Save applications, then Post.

Posting books the money. With accounting turned on, it writes the ledger entry: the bank account against what customers owe you.

How to handle a payment that does not match the invoices when the amounts differ

• The customer paid more than they owe. Apply what the invoices need; the rest stays on the customer's account as unapplied credit, shown as On-account credit available, ready for their next invoice. A payment with nothing applied posts entirely on account ("No applications. Payment will be on-account.").
• The customer took an early-payment discount. Enter it in Discount on that invoice's line. The discount window comes from the invoice's payment term.
• A few cents are left over. Enter the remainder in Write-off so the invoice closes instead of sitting open for pennies.
• The customer has credit from before. Choose Apply available credits to use earlier overpayments or posted credit memos against open invoices. A payment can also carry no cash at all and only apply existing credit.

An invoice cannot be over-applied: the table shows Over-applied by and refuses to save until each invoice's applied, discount and write-off amounts fit its open balance.

How to pay a supplier when their bills are due

Choose Payment to Supplier, pick the supplier, the date, the bank account and the amount, then apply it to their open bills the same way, with Auto apply or bill by bill. Make Payment on the Payables page (invoicing) starts the same form with the selected bills filled in.

How to refund a customer when you owe them money back

1. Issue a credit memo for the amount and post it.
2. Add a payment of type Refund to Customer for that customer.
3. In Refund memos, apply the refund to the credit memo, then post.

How to correct a payment when it was entered wrong

• Draft: change it, or delete it.
• Posted: its applications are frozen. Choose Void, which writes a reversing entry and marks it Voided, then enter it again correctly.

Where this fits

Customer payments settle the sales invoices written for each delivery; supplier payments settle purchase invoices. Every posted payment appears under Recent payments on Invoicing, in the customer's statement under Accounts, and, with accounting on, in the bank account's ledger in Accounting.