This screen lets you enter and edit customer payments. It is also used to apply open credits to the customers account as you receive payments. This might be the case when a customer sends you a check for an invoice and indicates that they would also like to apply one of their open credits.
Access this screen either from the main toolbar or from Sales & A/R on the Main Menu.
Header Fields
| CUSTOMER ID | Enter the customer ID to apply this payment or credit to. Use the field lookup button to select a customer from a browse. |
| PAYMENT | Enter the total dollar amount to credit to the customers account. This amount must match the total of the amount fields for line items on this transaction. This prevents you from posting a check or credit with an incorrect dollar amount. |
| CHECK # | The document number of the payment or credit from the customer. Use the customers check number for payments. Enter the customers credit card number if this is a charge. |
| REFERENCE
SUMMARY BILL INVOICE # |
If the customer has Summary Billing enabled, enter the Summary Bill Invoice here.
Otherwise, enter an optional customer reference # from the document for your records. |
| PAYMENT TYPE | Select either:
Check Charge (Amex, Discover, Visa, Mastercard, Other) Exp. Date (format 99/99) Cash |
| BANK ACCOUNT | This is the account for this transaction. The program automatically defaults to your Default Bank Account. Unless your company makes deposits to multiple bank accounts, leave this as is for all payments. |
| EMPLOYEE ID | Enter the employee ID of the person entering the payment or credit. The default is your employee log on ID. |
| PAYMENT DATE | Enter the date the document was received. |
| AUTO-POPULATE | Check this box to auto-populate line items on the payment from open invoices. The oldest invoices are pre-selected up to the amount of the PAYMENT entered.
If this customer is set for Summary Billing, invoices linked to the entered Summary Bill are auto-populated instead. |
| NOTES TAB | Enter any special notes regarding this payment as needed. |
Auto-Populate
If you have Auto-Populate Payments enabled in Setup|A/R you can have Simple Accounting pre-select payment line items as described above. This function occurs after you finish entering the Header and press the <Insert> key to begin entering line items.
If the Customer is set up for Summary Billing, you will see a dialog box that will allow you to select which invoices to auto-populate; either ones from the Summary Bill or simply the oldest invoices as with other non-Summary Billing customers.
Line Item Fields
Before beginning to enter line items, Simple Accounting checks to see if any outstanding invoices are on file for this Customer. If not, the system warns you with a dialog box.
| INVOICE/ | Enter the Invoice number or select an open invoice from the browse window by using |
| TRANSACTION | the Field Lookup Button. If this is a pre-payment, you may also select the Transaction ID of the Sales Order. |
| PAYMENT TYPE | Select either:
Open Invoice: There is an invoiced Sales Order which is unpaid Pre-payment There is an un-invoiced Sales Order. In this case, you enter the Open Credit. The payment does not reference any transaction currently in Simple Accounting. If you select Open Credit, you cannot enter an invoice number; this is assigned for you when you press the [Post] button. |
| PAYMENT | This is the (dollar) amount of the payment received. This may be the payment amount in its entirety if the customer is paying a single invoice with a single check. Or it may be only the payment amount that applies to this invoice.
If you enter a negative amount in this field a debit is entered to this Customer’s account which does not affect the Customer or Item Sales History. This can be quite useful for entering any miscellaneous adjustment to the Customer’s account. If you are entering a Finance Charge, the default amount to display will always be the customer’s Late Charge. |
| G/L ACCOUNT | This field is used to determine where the posted invoice will be credited in the General Ledger. Normally this would be the default A/R account; however, it could be any valid G/L account number, if for example, the payment was received as a pre-payment. |
| DISCOUNT | Enter the dollar amount of discount applied for this invoice. The total credit applied to the Customer’s account is the sum of the Amount field plus the Discount field.
Example:You receive payment on a $100.00 invoice with an allowed discount of %2.00. The customer sends you a check for $98.00. Enter $98.00 in the AMOUNT field and $2.00 in the DISCOUNT field. The CREDIT field displays $100.00. When the payment is posted, the invoice will then be marked by the system as paid in full. Refer to the topic on Customer Payments for tips on handling underpayments or overpayments involving sales tax. Refer to the topic on Commission Reports to understand how discounts affect sales commissions. |
| G/L ACCOUNT | This field holds the account to which the discount is to be applied. Normally this would be the Sales Discount account specified in Setup Global Options. You can, however, use this field to enter apply the discount to another account.
Example: You receive payment of $75.00 for an invoice charged as $75.25. The customer was incorrectly charged too much sales tax, and has sent in the correct amount. Enter $75.00 in the AMOUNT field, and 0.25 in the DISCOUNT field. Then enter your Sales Tax Payable account in the DISCOUNT ACCOUNT field to reverse the overcharge. When the payment is posted, the invoice will be marked as paid in full. Example: You receive payment of $75.35 for an invoice charged as $75.25. Normally, you would want the difference left as an open credit to the customer’s account, however in this case, because the amount is so small, you would rather not leave it open. Enter $75.35 in the AMOUNT field, and -0.10 in the DISCOUNT field, entering some Miscellaneous Income account in the DISCOUNT ACCOUNT field to account for the overcharge. When the payment is posted, the invoice will then be marked by the system as paid in full, with ten cents credited to the selected miscellaneous income account. |
| DESCRIPTION | The description for each item will appear on the customer’s Monthly Statement if they are configured as (Statement Type) = Balance Forward. The default description is CUSTOMER PAYMENT. |
This button activates a [tooltip slug="browse-box"]browse box[/tooltip]. It is always placed directly to the right of an entry field and allows you to select a value for the entry field from the browse box. The browse box usually has all the same functions as if you had selected it from the main menu, so you can add, edit or delete records in the browse without leaving your original task.
Pressing <F6> on your keyboard when you are in a field with a lookup button works the same as pressing the Field Lookup button itself!