Receiving Payments (A/R) Follow
About Payments
Your customers may pay for products and services you provide for them at different phases of
the production:
a. Payment Before an Order has been Posted (Deposit): The Order has been created and
the job is still in the production phase.
b. Payment After an Order has been Posted (AR Payment): The job has been delivered
and the customer has received the invoice. The posted Order is now a History job.
c. Advance Payment (Prepayment): The customer has not placed an order for the job yet. This payment is usually applied as a credit to the customer’s account. (See also “Issuing Credits”.)
A. Applying a Payment Before an Order Has Been Posted (Deposit)
When you receive a payment for an Order before it has been posted, the payment is applied to the Order. In Printer’s Plan, this type of payment is named “Deposit”. To enter a Deposit:
1. Open the Order to which you want to apply the payment.
2. Click the Balance Due button to open the Deposit Window.
NOTE: If a credit is due on the customer’s account, the Balance Due button name reads
Credit Due and shows in red. When you click the Credit Due button, you see a window,
giving you an option to apply the credit to this Order.
3. In the Deposit window:
a. Tendered: Enter the payment amount. If the payment amount equals the total amount due, click the <-- Set as Amount Due button to copy the amount due to this field
b. Paid by: Select the payment type. Click <-- Set as Default Type field to set the selected payment type as default. (This payment type will be used as default for future jobs.)
c. Reference: Enter the reference number or text, such as the check number.
d. Date Paid: This date is automatically set to the local computer’s current date.
4. Click one of the Save buttons to save the payment.
Overpayment
If the payment amount is greater than the Balance, the difference between the two amounts
appears in the Change field.
Printer’s Plan assumes that you pay the amount in the Change field back to the customer at that time rather than keeping it as credit on the account; therefore, it assumes that the payment received is equal to the Amount Due, which is applied to the Order and which is recorded as the Payment Received in Accounts Receivable. If you want to apply the Change amount as a credit to the customer’s account, see “Advance Payment".
B. Applying a Payment After an Order Has Been Posted
After an Order has been posted, a payment towards its invoice is applied in the Payment
window of the customer in the A/R section. See the following inset to learn about the Payment
window of a customer:
The payment window of a customer is available in the A/R section. To open it, you may choose one of the following ways:
a. Open the Payments Expected folder, and click one of the six date range options (Any Date through Past Due). A list of customers, which have open (unpaid) invoices with due dates within the date range selected, appears. Any Date lists all customers that have open invoices—regardless of
the payment due dates.
b. Double-click a customer to open the customer’s Payment window.
2. Using the Invoices Unpaid folder:
a. Open the Invoices Unpaid folder and click By Customer, By
Invoice No, or Past-Due only to list the unpaid invoices that fit the
description.
b. Double-click an invoice of a customer to open the customer’s
Payment window.
3. Using the New button:
a. Click once on one of the following folders: Invoices Ready to Post,
Invoices Unpaid, or Invoices Expected.
b. Click the New button at the top. The Find window appears.
c. Using the Find window, filter for the customer or the invoice. The
Payment window of the customer opens.
Note: If the customer does not have any unpaid invoices, you will see the
following message before the Payment window opens.
If this payment is an advance payment, click Yes to open the Payment
window. See “Advance Payment” for more information.
“Save” Buttons of the Payment Window – When To Use Them:
A) Save & New (This Cust): Saves this payment and opens the payment window of this customer again to enter another payment.
B) Save & New (Find Cust): Saves this payment and opens the Find window so you can enter information to open another customer's Payment window.
C) Save & Close: Saves the payment and closes this Payment window. No other window is opened.
Applying a Payment in A/R
1. In A/R, open the Payment window of the customer.
2. In the Payment window, enter the following:
Date: Enter or select the date that you received the payment.
Type: Select a payment type.
Note: Payment types can be defined by the user in Settings | Accounting |
Payment Types.
Ref: Enter a payment reference number, such as the check number.
Amount: Enter the amount and apply it to the invoice(s) which the payment pays. Following are various ways a payment or a partial payment can be applied to an invoice or invoices.
a. Enter the payment amount in the Amount field and check each invoice to which you want to apply the payment.
If the sum of the invoices that you check exceeds the payment amount, the last invoice that you check will be only partially paid.
EXAMPLE: Let's say a customer has three invoices, each one in the amount of $100, and they send you a check for $250. You would enter $250 in the Amount field and then check all three invoices; however, only the first two that you check would be paid in full, and the remaining $50 would be applied as a partial payment to the third invoice.
b. Do not enter anything in the Amount field. Check each invoice to which the payment applies. As you check each invoice, the amount of the invoice is added to the number in the Amount field. Continue to check the invoices until the number in the Amount field equals the amount of the payment you received.
c. To apply a partial payment to an invoice, do not check the invoice but click on the invoice to highlight it, and then click Apply Partial Payment.
The apply window appears.
Enter the partial payment amount.
d. If the payment pays all or most of the invoices, click the HOW TO APPLY PAYMENT: button to check (pay) all the invoices listed. The total payment amount will be automatically entered in the Amount field. Uncheck any invoices that are not paid.
NOTE: Verify that the Amount field has the correct payment amount.
3. Click one of the Save &... buttons to save the payment.
Overpayment
If the payment amount is greater than the amount that you must apply to a set of invoice(s), the remaining amount appears in the Remains field. Then, when you save the payment, Printer’s Plan asks if you want to credit the remaining amount to the customer’s account. Click Yes to accept. (See “Credits” for information on processing credits.)
Early Payment Discount
Some businesses give their customers a discount for paying invoices sooner than the payment due date. This discount can be applied at the time of the payment. To give an early payment discount:
1. In the Payment window, highlight the invoice (do not check the invoice), and click the Edit Job Totals button.
The Job Totals window appears.
2. In the Job Totals window, enter the discount amount in the Write Off field as a negative
number.
NOTE: Do not enter the amount in the Discount field because the amount entered in the Discount field directly affects the Sales and the Tax amounts. The Early Payment Discount is in essence a partial Write Off of the invoice total.
NOTE: Apply the early payment discount before you apply a payment to the invoice.
C. Advance Payment
When you receive an advance payment (payment received before an Order has been entered), enter it in the Payment window of the customer in the A/R section and apply it as a credit to the customer’s account. This process is basically the same as entering a payment for an invoice:
1. In the A/R section, open the customer’s Payment window.
NOTE: If the customer does not have any open invoices, you will see the following message:
Click Yes. The Payment window appears.
2. In the Payment window:
Date: Enter the date of the payment.
Type: Select the payment type. (This list is user defined in Settings | Accounting | Payment Types.)
Ref.: Enter the payment reference number or text, such as the check number.
Amount: Enter the amount of the payment.
CAUTION: Do not apply the payment to any invoices.
3. Click one of the Save buttons. A window pops up, asking if you want to credit this amount to the customer's account.
4. Click Yes.
Viewing Payments Recieved (Payment Journal)
To see a list of Payments received today, in A/R open Payments Received and select “Today”. The list of payments entered today appears as follows:
If a payment has been applied to more than one invoice, double-click the payment to see how it was distributed to each invoice as in the following figure.
Use the other options under “Payments Received” to list payments entered on other days or date ranges.