We can take Sales Payments in a number of ways:


  • Take Payments at the time of producing the Invoice (Sales Finish / Invoice screen)
  • Take Payments against a Sales Order eg: Lay-by (Sales Finish / Sales Order screen)
  • Take Payments for outstanding Invoices and credits (Payments Received screen)
  • Take Pre-Payments from a customer (Payments Received screen)



Taking a Pre-Payment

Pre-Payments are when you are receiving money when you are not creating a Sales Invoice or paying off an outstanding Account. We must always record when we take money and this is a common option when we are not yet ready to invoice the customer or the operator is unsure if the invoice has been created or how it should be created.


Pre-Payments are entered in the Payments Received screen.

  1. Select Contacts from the top menu and elect the appropriate customer
  2. Select Payments from the left menu
  3. Select Pre-Payment from the left menu
  4. Select the Payment Method and the amount received

You can also access Payments Received from Accounts / Sales / Payments Received.


Taking a Payment against a Sales Order

This is basically the same as a Pre-payment except the payment is linked to the Sales Order.

Please see Sales / Finish / Sales Order for more information


Taking a Payment against an outstanding Sales Account

This is when a customer has outstanding account invoices and / or Credits and they want to make a payment against them.


If the Payment does not equate to a number of Invoices / Credits, it is better to do a Pre-payment 


If it is does match up:

  1. Select Contacts from the top menu and select the appropriate customer
  2. Select Payments from the left menu (The screen will show all outstanding Account Invoices and Credits)
  3. Tick the Invoices and / or Credits you want to pay
  4. Select the Payment Method
  5. Select a Save option (Save&Print or SaveNoPrint)

Using an amount owed to Pay purchase transaction(s)

This is common for Warranty Invoices where the money is used as a credit on the purchase side to pay for parts purchase invoices.

  • Ensure there is a 'Supplier Account' option in Sales payment methods referring to the Purchase Contra account (01-08-99) - See Settings / System / Sales / Payment Methods
  • Mark the Invoice(s) or Pre-payment Paid by the Supplier account


This will mark the Sales Invoice paid by Sales Contra, create a Journal from the Sales Contra to the Purchase Contra, and create a Pre-payment from the Purchase Contra account. 


Note: If the Sales amount is less than the Purchase amount and you want the Credit to stay on the Sales side, eg: if the amounts were 500 for a purchase and 465 for a sale

  • Leave the Sales Invoice for 465 as not paid
  • Create a Sales Pre-payment for 500 on the Supplier Account (This will put s Credit of 500 on the Purchase side)
  • Mark the Purchase Transaction paid from the Purchase Contra account

The Sales account will show 465 owing and 500 credit making a balance credit of -35


Negative Balances

Negative balances can cause confusion. The system will normally warn if the end amount is negative and explain the options of what to do.


For example, if we enter a pre payment of 250 the system credits the account for -250. We then do an invoice for 200 on Account. If we go into Payments we see the Credit for -250 and the invoice for 200 giving a Balance of -50 credit. If will allocate both items the balance is of -50. Because the balance is negative it will ask if you want to create a Credit for the balance. If we select to credit it will create a Credit and allocate the three entries which add up to zero, if we answer not to credit it will assume we are paying the balance (-50) back to the customer. 


Normally it is better to create a prepayment for the amount being paid if it does not balance to the Invoices to allocate as it shows the sequence of events more clearly, especially if producing Statements for the customer.