Finance and Accounting · Daily operations · 10 min read

Record receipts and payments and manage open items

Register a payment against an invoice or bill, take an advance, allocate it later, reverse it, and read open items, statements and aging.

Before you begin

• The invoice or bill is posted. Invoices and bills are raised in Sales and Purchase.
• A bank or cash account exists to receive or pay the money.
• Permissions: payment.record to record, allocate and undo allocations; payment.reverse to reverse a payment; report.view for statements and aging.

Pay one invoice or bill

1. Open the posted invoice or bill and press Register receipt (customers) or Register payment (suppliers).
2. Choose how you enter the amount: Amount, or Per cent of balance (50 on AED 2,000.00 gives 1,000.00). Enter the Amount received or Amount paid. It must be above zero and not more than the balance outstanding.
3. Enter the Payment date. It cannot be before the invoice date and must fall in an open period.
4. Choose the Method (cash, bank, cheque, card, online, direct debit, other, or your own configured methods).
5. Choose Deposit to or Paid from. Control accounts are not accepted.
6. For a cheque, or any method flagged as needing a reference, enter the Cheque number / Transaction reference.
7. Press Register receipt or Register payment. The button works once even if clicked twice.

Worked example. An invoice of AED 5,000.00 receives AED 2,000.00. The entry debits the bank AED 2,000.00 and credits the receivable AED 2,000.00. The invoice shows Partially paid with AED 3,000.00 outstanding.

Clear a small remainder

Tick Clear the balance and choose Write off to (an expense or income account, not a bank or control account) and a Reason. If AED 999.50 is received on AED 1,000.00, the AED 0.50 remainder is written off and the invoice is paid.

Take an advance and allocate it later

1. Open Finance > Accounting > Payments and receipts and press Record payment.
2. Choose Type (Receipt or Payment), the Partner, the Amount and the method. Leave Document empty. The money shows as Unapplied on the partner's open items.
3. To apply it, press Allocate, choose the payment and enter an amount per invoice. You cannot allocate more than is outstanding on the charge or unapplied on the payment.

You can also settle many invoices of one customer or supplier with a single payment (up to 200 lines). Selecting invoices of two partners is refused.

Early-payment discount

On the open items list, press Take against an invoice while the discount window is open. The discount is booked as a write-off on the allocation. After the window closes, the action is refused. It cannot be combined with a write-off on the same line.

Reverse a payment

1. Open the payment and press Reverse payment.
2. Enter the reversal date (an open period) and confirm.

The reversing entry is posted, the allocation is undone and the invoice is open again. The payment shows Reversed. This needs payment.reverse, which is a separate permission from recording.

Open items, statements and aging

• Finance > Receivables > Customer open items and Finance > Payables > Vendor open items show document, due date, original, allocated and outstanding amounts, with status Unpaid, Partially paid, Paid or Overpaid. Outstanding is worked out live; the original amount never changes. Set As at to see a past date. Undo allocation returns the amount to the charge and to the payment without reversing the cash entry.
• Customer statements and Supplier statements: choose the period and partner. Opening plus debits less credits equals closing, shown with the invoices that make up the balance.
• Receivables aging and Payables aging: buckets Current, 1-30, 31-60, 61-90 and 90+, with a check that the total agrees with the control account. Choose whether to age from the due date or the document date.
• Payment due lists supplier bills due by a date, oldest first, with what stops each from being paid.
• Goods received not invoiced lists receipts on purchase orders not yet covered by a posted bill.

What happens next

The receipt or payment is posted as a journal entry, and the allocation links it to the document. Bank reconciliation matches it to the bank statement later. See Import and reconcile bank statements.

Good to know

• Over-paying is refused. Book an advance instead.
• A payment settles charges in its own currency only. Foreign receipts use the approved rate on the payment date; any difference from the invoice posts as an exchange gain or loss on settlement.
• A supplier bill on payment hold cannot be paid, and a retention amount cannot be paid early.
• A direct payment does not look at disputes; payment proposals do. See Supplier payment runs and holds.