Receiving payments
Payments
are expected to arrive after the customers receive their invoices (except for any invoices that were written as paid-in-full.) Payments may be received into the cash drawer, where they are tracked in an
Undeposited Funds
account. They may be directly deposited into a bank account. QuickBooks expects that if a customer is billed through receivables, payment will come through receivables.
Receive Payments
is on the
XE "receive payments" XE "payments:receive" Activities
menu. First pick a Customer:Job.
Note that if a customer has
multiple jobs, the jobs are effectively
different customers. QuickBooks (through
versions 5.0) will record one payment as
being from one customer for one job.
(We can always hope for improvement.)
For payments applied to several jobs, the
workaround is described below.
Date
should always be inspected, because it is sticky. If the last transaction entered (anywhere in QuickBooks) was a non-current transaction, that date may be carried over.
Amount
accepts entry of the amount of money received on the current transaction. That bears repeating. The
Amount
field entry should be the amount of money that came in the door on the current transaction.
(In some rare but very significant cases,
this may be zero.)
Pmt Method
allows selection from a list, using the down-arrow.
Check No
is a text field of eleven characters, and appears in some reports as
Payment No.
Group with undeposited funds
is typically used by a business, such as a janitorial service, that receives many
small checks, and perhaps does not deposit them each day. The
undeposited funds check box moves
payments to the Undeposited Funds
account, effectively a cash drawer.
Deposit to
(with a field for selecting a bank account) was added in response to suggestions from construction
contractors and similar businesses, who may go weeks between receiving checks, and then deposit them
promptly (very promptly.) The deposit may be made not only before the transaction is recorded, but by being
taken from the customer straight to the bank.
TIP
Select the receiving account with the down-arrow. You can use any account appearing in this list.
Existing Credits
will show the sum of any prior payments or credit memos that are available for this customer
. Note that prior credits and some other items are only displayed, and are not accessible for change.
Apply Existing Credits
causes credits to be applied to any and all invoices with a check ( b ) in the left-most
column. Several invoices may be selected, and amounts to be applied to each invoice may be entered.
However, if multiple credits are available, there is no control over the order in which they are applied.
Outstanding invoices
for this customer and job will be shown. The previous balance on each invoice will be
listed. The payment column will show either zeroes or amounts for the payments being applied to the invoices
. If amounts are shown, a selection (in
Preferences|Sales ...)
has been made for Auto Apply
. Zeroes will appear if Auto Apply
is not in use.
Auto Apply or
Clear Payments
(one or the other) will appear as a legend on one button. Clicking on this
button will either automatically apply payments, or clear the payments column to all zeroes. To make a
permanent selection, select (on the menu bar)
File|Preferences|Sales ... |Automatically Apply Payments.
Print Cred Memo
button is usable to print a credit memo. The illustration was set up with a payment of more
than is owed, and the credit memo could be printed to advise the customer of this.
Discount Info
XE "discounts:customer" button gives access to allowance of discounts. First, click in the
Payment
column of any invoice line. Then click the
Discounts
button. QuickBooks will calculate any
discount earned under terms of the invoice, and the last date that discount should be allowed. You have full
control over any discount granted. Pressing
Escape or selecting Cancel
will exit without granting a discount.
A discount account is needed, usually an expense account. You can set up a choice between several discount
accounts. This is one of the values of computer accounting. You are free to carry along exactly as much fine
-grained detail as fits your business. The discount will be shown as an expense, incurred at the time it was
applied.
Next, OK, or
Control-Enter will complete the
Receive Payments activity.
TIP
No Signature
on the customer’s check? Do you have to send it back? No. Assuming that you have
delivered value to the customer, and that the check represents payment for a valid business debt, go ahead and
deposit it. Above your endorsement, write “Lack of signature guaranteed.” The customer can ask his bank to
reject the check. That is quite unlikely, and if it should happen, you are only back where you started. If the
customer merely was careless, you do not need to cause embarrassment. On the other hand, if the customer
was playing a game, trying to delay payment, it did not work.
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