Use Payments Received to record one customer payment and allocate it across several invoices in one step.
#Recording a payment
- Sales → Payments Received → Record a payment.
- Customer * — selecting one loads their outstanding invoices. Payment number (auto), Payment date *, Deposit to *, Reference and Statement. If the payment is in a currency other than your base currency, enter the Exchange rate (the feed's rate for the day is in Settings → Currencies if you need it).
- Amount received — what the customer actually paid. Leave it blank and it is simply what the invoices take.
- The Allocations table lists each open invoice with Date, Invoice total, Already paid and Due. Type an amount in Payment for each invoice you are settling, or click Pay full. You cannot allocate more than an invoice's due, and the invoices together cannot take more than the amount received.
- The totals show Applied to invoices, Unapplied (credit) and Amount received. Click Record payment.
#Advances, deposits and overpayments
A payment does not have to match invoices. When the amount received is more than the invoices take — or the customer has no invoice yet (a deposit or advance) — the difference is unapplied: it stays as credit on the customer's account. The customer's balance shows it as a credit, the customer page lists it under Unapplied payments, and aging reports show it in an Unapplied column.
You can then:
- Apply it to invoices — on the payment's page click Apply to invoices, choose the date it applies from (Apply as of, not earlier than the payment) and enter an amount per invoice. Or, from an invoice, ⋯ → Apply credits lists the customer's open credit notes and unapplied payments together.
- Refund it — click Refund, enter the date, amount, the account the money is paid from and, for a foreign-currency payment, the exchange rate.
#The payment page
Shows the customer, number, date, deposit account and reference, with a summary of Applied to invoices, Refunded and Unapplied. Tabs: Allocations (each invoice paid, linked, with the date it was applied), Refunds (when there are any) and Journal Entries. Actions: Apply to invoices, Refund, Edit Payment, Send Mail (a payment receipt), PDF, Delete.
Remove an invoice applied later with the delete icon on its row; the amount goes back to unapplied. A payment that has later applications or refunds cannot be edited or deleted until those are removed. Deleting a payment reopens the invoices it settled.