Receive customer payments across invoices

Use Receive Payment to record money a customer sent outside the card gateway, such as a check, ACH, wire, or cash, and apply it to their open invoices and pro forma invoices in one step.

Receive a payment

Open Receive Payment from the Billing Overview, from Billing → Accounts Receivable → Payments, or from the footer of an open invoice or pro forma invoice. In Collections, select a customer’s row, then Receive payment. From a document, the customer is fixed, the amount starts at that document’s balance, and the document is already ticked.

1. Choose the Customer. Their open invoices and pro forma invoices load under Apply to open documents, oldest due date first.
2. Check Date received. It can’t be later than today.
3. Pick the Payment method: Check, ACH, Wire, Cash, or Other. The methods offered follow Offline payment methods in Settings → Business → Billing.
4. Enter Amount received and, optionally, Reference / Check #, such as a check number, ACH trace, or wire ID. Use Add a memo for a note.
5. Review how the amount is applied, then select Receive Payment.

How the amount is applied

When Apply payments oldest invoice first is on in Settings → Business → Billing (the default), the amount fills the open documents from the oldest due date down. When it is off, nothing is pre-filled and you choose the split.

• Change any line’s Apply amount. A line can’t exceed that document’s balance.
• Tick a document to apply what’s left of the payment to it, or untick it to remove its amount.
• Apply oldest first spreads the amount again from the top. Clear removes every line.

Payment amount, Applied, and Remaining show the result. If Applied is more than the amount received, the payment can’t be saved. The list shows up to the first 100 open documents.

Customer credit

A remainder becomes customer credit only when Allow overpayment is on in Settings → Business → Billing. It is off by default. When it is on, the panel shows Remaining becomes customer credit; when it is off, it shows Apply the full amount to save.

If the customer already has credit, Available credit appears with Apply credit. Tick the documents first: credit is applied to them straight away, in order, up to each balance. When Credit applies to the next invoice is on, credit is also applied automatically when the customer’s next invoice is issued. The customer’s Billing tab shows their Available Credit.

Charge a card instead

When the company’s card payments are set up and the customer has open documents, the panel shows Charge a card instead. Card payments run through the gateway and post automatically, so don’t also record them as a payment.

1. Tick exactly one document. Charge card stays unavailable until you do.
2. Select Charge card, then choose a saved card or Use a new card (Add a card when none is saved).
3. Set Amount to charge, or use Full balance, 50%, or 25%, and select Charge payment.

Charge card in an invoice or pro forma invoice footer opens the same card charge for that document.

Review, edit or void a payment

Billing → Accounts Receivable → Payments lists customer payments and card charges. Search by number, customer, or reference; filter by Check, ACH / Wire, Cash, Card, or Credit; and use Export Excel for the filtered list. Received this month shows the month’s total. Earlier bank-transfer payments show as ACH / Wire.

Open a payment to see its method, received date, reference, source, memo, the documents it was Applied to with their balances, and any Unapplied credit.

• Edit reopens the payment so you can change its method, date, reference, memo, and split. The customer and amount stay fixed.
• Void returns every document the payment paid to its open balance and removes its credit. Your company may require a reason. The voided payment keeps who voided it, when, and why.

Edit and Void are available only for a recorded payment that wasn’t made by card. Correct a card payment through its card charge’s refund or void actions in Billing → Reports → Card Payments.

When a payment is refused

• Receive Payment stays unavailable: choose a customer, enter an amount above zero with at most two decimals, use a date no later than today, and apply no more than the amount received. Apply all of it unless overpayment is allowed.
• A document can no longer take a payment: it changed after the panel loaded, for example because it was paid or voided. The message names it, and the list reloads.
• Credit from this payment was already applied: undo that credit application before editing the payment.
• The trip is already billed: once a trip is on an Open, Partially Paid, or Paid invoice or pro forma invoice, the booking refuses new payments and card holds, charges, and captures. The message names the document; record the payment there instead.

For refunds, credits, and the wider payment history, see Review payments, refunds, and credits.