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Payments

How payments work

Sales Scribe records the money your customers pay you and matches it to the invoices it settles. This guide explains the two-step way payments work so the rest of the payment…

How payments work

Sales Scribe records the money your customers pay you and matches it to the invoices it settles. This guide explains the two-step way payments work so the rest of the payment guides make sense.

Note: These guides are about payments you record as received — by bank transfer, cheque, cash, card machine and so on. Taking a card payment online through the invoice itself is not part of this version; your customers view the invoice online and pay you by the details shown on it.

The idea: record first, then allocate

Sales Scribe separates two things that many people think of as one:

  1. Recording the payment — you tell Sales Scribe that money has arrived (how much, when, by what method, in which currency). This is the point at which the money enters your books.
  2. Allocating the payment — you match that money to one or more specific invoices, so Sales Scribe knows which debts it has cleared.

Keeping these separate is deliberate. It means you can:

  • take one payment and spread it across several invoices;
  • record money now and decide later which invoice it belongs to;
  • record a deposit or overpayment that is not tied to any invoice yet.

This "record then match" approach is what the glossary calls Model B.

flowchart LR
    A[Money arrives] --> B[Record the payment<br/>money enters your books]
    B --> C{Match it now?}
    C -->|Yes| D[Allocate to one or<br/>more invoices]
    C -->|Not yet| E[Leave it on account<br/>unallocated]
    E -.->|later| D

What "on account" means

A payment you have recorded but not yet fully matched to invoices is said to be on account, or unallocated. The money is safely in your books, sitting in a holding position (your unapplied receipts account) until you allocate it. Nothing is lost — you simply match it to an invoice whenever you are ready.

Where each step happens

There are two ways to record a payment, and they suit different situations.

  • Straight from an invoice — the quickest path when you know exactly which invoice was paid. Sales Scribe records the payment and allocates it to that invoice in one step, and the invoice's status updates automatically. See Record a payment against an invoice.
  • On its own, from the Payments area — go to Payments → Customer Payments and select Record Payment. This records the payment first; you then post it and allocate it (immediately or later). This is the right path for a deposit, a lump sum covering several invoices, or money you cannot yet match. See Record a payment on account.

What happens to your accounts

  • Recording (posting) a payment puts the money into your books: it increases your bank balance and holds the amount as unapplied receipts until you match it. This is the point where the payment starts to appear in your reports.
  • Allocating a payment to an invoice reduces what that customer owes you (your accounts receivable) and lowers the invoice's outstanding balance. The invoice's status — Partially Paid, Paid or Overpaid — is then worked out automatically from the balance.
  • If the payment is in a foreign currency and the exchange rate has moved since the invoice was issued, Sales Scribe also records a realised exchange gain or loss automatically when you allocate. See Foreign-currency payments and exchange gains or losses.

A draft payment (one you have started but not yet posted) has no effect on your accounts at all until you post it.

Payment guides

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