I am wondering what would be suggested as the best way to do the following scenario in Billings:

For example:
- Client is invoiced $500
- Work is complete but client only makes a payment of $250.
- This leaves $250 outstanding on account that won't be collected.

What is the best way to take the remaining $250 that will not be collected out of Billings? I want to maintain accurate numbers, so I would prefer not to just have to register that I collected $500 to balance my totals, and place a note to remind myself of what the exact situation was. Should I just redo the invoice and payment with a note attached? Would this be the simplest and fastest way to deal with these situations?

Thanks!

I would like to know this as well - I have $250 tied up and trying to account for it.

I noticed the entry in the support section dealing with overpayments before, this would basically be the opposite (underpayment), however, I don't think the overpayment solution that is provided applies in anyway to underpayments.

Any help would be appreciated.

Perfect timing…I just came to the boards here looking for an answer to the same problem.

What I've ended up doing is a pain in the ***, but it works:

• take note of the invoice and delete it, restoring the slips
  
• go to prefs and reset the invoice number to be the deleted invoice
  
• add a slip with a negative balance showing the waived amount
  
• create a new invoice with all slips (should have a zero balance)
  
• go to prefs and reset the invoice number
  

The other thing I've done is to create a new invoice whose slip reads "invoice XXX balanced waived" and bill for negative the amount due. Then record a payment on both invoices (one positive, one negative). The invoice records make sense and the balance sheet adds up but the con there is that you end up with a not-quite-accurate payment history.

Thank you for sharing that Roger.

Also as a request for the Billings team, a feature incorporated into Billings that would in somehow handle this process would be very very helpful and appreciated.

Very much a newbie but I take it that once issued an invoice cannot be reissued with an extra 'credit note' slip?. Because if so that would be simplest.

Wouldn't the next simplest approach be to create a new slip with a negative amount as a credit slip or whatever and then issue a new invoice with that slip on it?

That way there would be no awkward deleted invoice and the client's account total would be correct.

That's more or less the second method I described above... The only bummer about this method is you still need to enter payments on both invoices for the invoices to show as resolved.

Ya, I ended up doing what is described here by Roger (re-doing the invoice with a negative slip).

Seems to be the best idea for now.

quote:

Originally posted by roger wilco:
That's more or less the second method I described above... The only bummer about this method is you still need to enter payments on both invoices for the invoices to show as resolved.

Sorry, didn't read carefully enough, I can live with a second credit invoice with negative payment. Deleting and reissuing an already issued invoice just seems wrong to me. You gets your money (or not!) and takes your choice :-)

Ed

I'd be happy if I could just void an invoice.

But in this case, the proper thing to do is to keep the same invoice and account for the unpaid balance as a loss and close the job. Getting to zero seems like a good thing, but the upaid balance is good to know for tax purposes.