Understand payment statuses
Every payment you record has a status that tells you where it is in its life and what you can do with it. This page describes customer payments; supplier payments work the same way.
The five statuses are Draft, Posted, Voided, Refunded and Reversed.
stateDiagram-v2
[*] --> Draft: Record Payment
Draft --> Posted: Post Payment
Draft --> Voided: Void
Posted --> Refunded: Refund (money went back)
Posted --> Reversed: Reverse (it was a mistake)
Posted --> Posted: Allocate / remove allocation
Voided --> [*]
Refunded --> [*]
Reversed --> [*]
What each status means
Draft
The payment has been started but not yet posted. A draft:
- has no effect on your accounts — nothing has entered your books yet;
- can be freely edited or deleted;
- can be voided (cancelled) if you decide not to keep it;
- can be posted when you are ready to commit it.
Recording a new payment from Payments → Customer Payments → Record Payment always creates a draft first.
Posted
The payment has been committed to your books. Posting records the money received and makes it available to match to invoices. Once a payment is posted:
- you can allocate it to one or more invoices (and it can be left partly or wholly unallocated / on account);
- it can no longer be edited, deleted or voided — it is now part of your records;
- to undo it you must refund or reverse it, which posts an equal and opposite entry rather than erasing anything — and you are asked which of the two it is, because they are not the same thing.
Voided
A draft payment that you cancelled instead of posting. Because a draft never entered your books, voiding it has no accounting effect. Voiding requires a reason and cannot be undone — the record is kept for your history. Voided is a final status.
Note: You can only void a payment that is still a draft. A payment that has been posted must be refunded or reversed instead — see Refund or reverse a payment.
Refunded
A posted payment where the money went back to the customer. The reversing entry is dated today — the day the money moved — so the month the payment was received in is left exactly as it was. Refunded is a final status.
Reversed
A posted payment that should never have been recorded — a duplicate, the wrong customer, a receipt that never happened. The reversing entry is dated the payment's own date, so that month reads as though nothing had been received. Reversed is a final status.
The two look similar on the payment itself and very different in your accounts: a refund on 3 September of a receipt dated 15 August leaves August's bank balance alone and shows money leaving in September; a reversal of the same receipt takes it out of August. That is also why a reversal of a payment dated inside a locked period is refused while a refund of it is not.
What you can do in each status
| Status | Edit / delete | Allocate to invoices | Post | Void | Refund / reverse |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Draft | Yes | No (post it first) | Yes | Yes | No |
| Posted | No | Yes | — | No | Yes |
| Voided | No | No | No | — | No |
| Refunded | No | No | No | No | — |
| Reversed | No | No | No | No | — |
Note: Allocating a payment, or removing an allocation, does not change the payment's status — it stays Posted. Only the invoice's balance (and therefore its own status) changes.
Finding payments by status
On Payments → Customer Payments you can filter the list with the quick filters All, This Month, Draft, Posted, Voided and Refunded, or use the Status filter in the Filters panel.
[Screenshot required: Customer Payments list showing the Draft / Posted / Voided / Refunded quick filters]
Supplier payments
Supplier payments have the same five statuses and the same question when a posted one is undone: the supplier sent the money back (dated today, Refunded) or the payment was a mistake (dated the payment's own date, Reversed). See Record a supplier payment.