Receive a Payment from a Customer

After you have taken a customer's order, fulfilled the order and sent an invoice, the next step in the A/R process is to receive a payment from your customer.

This article will describe how to enter a standard Receipt in the form of a check. Check out this article if you need to enter a Receipt from a method other than a check.

1. Enter a standalone Receipt

An open A/R item is created when a Sales Order is posted with a balance due.  To enter a payment against a Client's Open A/R, you'll need to create a standalone Receipt. This method will allow you to pay for one or multiple Invoices and/or enter a Client Deposit.

Navigate to Accounts Receivable ➤ Receipts and click the + symbol or use the keyboard shortcut Command + N to create a new record.

1.1. Enter the Receipt info

  1. Client Information: Enter the Client Name here. Terms, Client Number and Address will auto-populate.
    • Invoice Number: (Optional) This can be used to quickly find the correct Client record. This can be helpful if you have several Clients with the same name. This field is NOT used to indicate which invoice is being paid, you'll do that in step #4.
  2. Receipt Information: All fields are mandatory except for Memo.
    • Amount is the total amount of the check.
    • Date is the date the check was received.
  3. Receipt Type: In this article we are just using the standard Cash - Checking Receipt Type.
    • If you were accounting for a Credit Card, Wire Transfer or other type of Receipt, this is where you would select the relevant option.
  4. Line Items: In this bottom section you will select which of the invoices are being paid on the A/R tab.
    • If you click Auto-Apply the total Receipt Amount will be applied to invoices in order of oldest to newest.
    • You always have the option to manually apply the Receipt Amount to invoices using the Applied column.
    • If your customer took an A/R discount use the Discount column or if there are any tax adjustments to apply use the Tax Adj column.
    • If the customer is prepaying a deposit, then you'll click the + symbol above the detail area. You'll have the option to create either a Client Deposit (a liability) or A/R Credit (a contra-asset).
    • Distribution remaining - This should equal $0.00 when you are finished applying the Receipt.

Click OK to save the Receipt and don't forget to Post!

The Receipt Date field is "sticky" -- which means that it will remember the last date that was entered here. If you leave the Receipts window open (even leaving just the list view open) overnight, the system will still remember yesterday's Receipt Date.

When you enter a new date the system will then remember the new date.

Receipt - detail view

2. Enter a Receipt via Sales Order

There are various occasions where it may be necessary to enter a Client Receipt BEFORE the Sales Order is posted (e.g. client deposit, COD customer, etc). You can enter your customer's payment directly on the Sales Order.

Navigate to Sales ➤ Sales Orders & Quotes, open the Sales Order and go to the Payments tab. Click the + symbol to create a new Receipt.

Notes about Receipt posting:

  • By default, the Receipt will be posted automatically when the Sales Order is posted.
  • If you need to post the Receipt before the Sales Order (for bank reconciliation or other purposes), you can do that via the Receipts window:
    • The Receipt will be converted to a Client Deposit but will remain attached to the Sales Order.
    • This deposit will be moved to the section titled Apply Open Credits or Deposits.
    • If you need to remove the deposit from the order, highlight the deposit in the list and click the trash can icon.
Sales Order - Payments tab

2.1. Enter the Receipt info

Receipt entry is slightly different when using this method. Since the payment is being entered only for this one Sales Order, there is no detail area to select multiple invoices.

The Receipt Amount will auto-populate with the current Balance Due. You can override the Receipt Amount if the customer is paying a different amount (leaving a balance due on the order). You will still need to enter the Check Number and select the Receipt Type.

When the Receipt is saved, the Sales Order Balance Due will be recalculated.

Sales Order - Receipt entry

Receipt Detail list view

Navigate to Accounts Receivable ➤ Receipt Detail see the list view. This list view corresponds to the detail area as seen on posted Receipts.

Receipt Detail - list view