Invoice payments

Raising an invoice says what is owed. Recording a payment says what has actually arrived — and it is what keeps the due figure meaningful.

Recording a payment

From the invoice, use Add Payment on the ≡ menu. From a job, use the $ Payment button and then Pay Now. Both open the same window.

Invoice → Add Payment

Three figures sit at the top so you are never recording a payment blind: Total Invoice Amount, Paid Amount and Due Amount.

What you fill in:

• Payment Date — when the money was received, which is not always today.
• Amount Received — how much. It arrives pre-filled with the full outstanding amount, so settling an invoice in full is one click; overwrite it for anything less.
• Payment Mode — cash, bank transfer, card, PayPal and so on.
• Note — a cheque number, a reference, a part-payment arrangement.
• Attachment — a receipt, remittance advice or bank confirmation, kept with the payment.

Fields marked with an asterisk are required. Save records it, confirming with “Payment received successfully.”

A client who pays through the payment button in the invoice email needs no entry here — the invoice is marked paid on its own.

Applying an advance

Beside Payment Mode sits Advance Amount, showing what the client already has on account. Tick it to settle this invoice from that balance rather than asking for the money again.

It is unavailable when the figure is $0.00 — no advance held means nothing to apply.

Where an advance comes from. A client’s advance balance can be built two ways:

• From a quotation — the deposit asked for with Advance Payment to be charged (%), taken as a percentage of the quoted amount and collected when the client approves.
• Directly from the client — the client record has its own Add Advance Payment option, for money taken outside any particular document.

Either way it lands in the same place: a balance held against the client. Whatever sits there can be used to settle an invoice, so a deposit taken at quotation time months earlier is still there to draw on when the bill finally goes out.

Sending a payment receipt

A receipt confirms to the client that their money arrived. There are two ways to send one.

At the time you record the payment — tick Send payment receipt to client? at the foot of the Add Payment window.

Afterwards, if you didn’t tick it — open the Payment History tab and use the Payment Receipt Preview action on the payment’s row. Nothing is lost by forgetting the tickbox.

Payment History → Payment Receipt Preview

Either route opens Preview and Send Payment Receipt, which works like the other send windows: Email, Whatsapp or Both, a To and Cc, a subject and a message generated from a template you can edit — the gear beside Message changes it for every receipt from then on — and Payment Receipt.pdf attached.

The receipt itself is short by design: who paid, their address, the date, the payment type and the amount. Download saves it without sending.

Part payments

Because Amount Received is free, an invoice can be settled in instalments — a deposit now, the balance on completion. Record each as it arrives and the paid and remaining amounts move each time, so the invoice always shows the true position.

An invoice is badged Unpaid in the list until it is settled, and Paid once nothing remains.

The payment history

The Payment History tab on an invoice is the full record.

Invoice page → Payment History

The three totals are repeated at the top, and every payment is listed beneath with:

Column	What it holds
Payment Date	When the money was received
Payment Mode	How it was paid
Attachment	The receipt or remittance held with it
Payment By	Who recorded it
Updated Date	When the record was last changed
Description	The note against the payment
Amount	How much
Transaction fee	What the payment cost you to take — card and gateway fees
Status	Whether it has been synced to your accounts package

Each row can be viewed, edited or removed from the Action column, so a payment entered wrongly can be corrected rather than worked around. The view action is Payment Receipt Preview — the way to send a receipt after the fact.

Record a Transaction fee where a gateway takes a cut: the client paid the full amount, but you received less.

Status shows whether the payment has reached your accounts software. A payment reading Not synced exists here but not in your books yet.

If a payment will not sync, check the invoice first: a payment can only sync against an invoice that has already synced. See what syncs, and which way.

Credit notes

A credit note is the opposite direction: money owed back to the client, or an amount written off. Add Credit Note sits on the invoice’s ≡ menu.

Invoice → ≡ menu → Add Credit Note

It takes very little: a Payment Date, the Amount (the only required field), a Note, and an Attachment for the paperwork behind it.

A credit note is how you correct an invoice that has already been paid or sent, since a paid invoice cannot simply be deleted and editing one the client already holds means reissuing it. Overcharged by $40? Credit $40 against the invoice, with the note saying why. The original bill stays as it was sent, and the correction sits beside it.

Paid invoices are protected

Once payment is recorded, the invoice can no longer be deleted. It has become a financial record rather than a draft. If it was wrong, correct it by editing it, or issue a credit note — not by making it disappear.