Payments

Payments record money moving in or out of your cash and bank accounts. In SolaCount these are customer payments against invoices, supplier payments against bills, and general payments: receipts, disbursements, transfers, advances and refunds. Every posted payment creates a journal entry. Any invoice, bill or expense it is allocated to has its balance due reduced.

There are two payment forms:

Where to find it

The Payments rail in the sidebar has two sections.

Payments

Vouchers. These are filtered views of the payments list. They do not create a separate type of record.

Payments are also reachable from these places:

• Sales → Payments & Credits → Invoice Payments (/ar/invoice-payments): the customer payments list and Record a payment form.
• Purchases → Payments & Credits → Supplier Payments (/ap/bill-payments): the supplier payments list and form.
• Buttons on documents. See Record a payment from a document.
• The Payments Received and Payments Made reports, under Reports.

Record a customer payment

Use this form when a customer pays one or more base-currency invoices.

1. Go to Sales → Payments & Credits → Invoice Payments and click Record a payment. You can also open it from an invoice, as described below. The page is titled Record a payment.
2. Fill in the header:

3. Once a customer is selected, the allocation table loads that customer's open invoices with the columns Invoice No., Date, Due Date, Balance and Allocation. While it loads you see "Loading open documents…". If loading fails you see "Unable to load documents." and a Retry button. A customer with nothing open shows "No open documents found."
4. Allocate the amount. Click Auto Allocate, or type amounts into the Allocation column (see Allocation). Each row shows a Full or Partial badge. The toolbar shows the Allocated and Remaining totals.
5. Choose how to save:
   • Click Save to keep the payment as a draft. Drafts post nothing to the ledger.
   • Click Post to post it now. A confirmation dialog asks you to check the amount and the selected documents ("This payment will be posted and its allocations recorded…"). Click Post in the dialog.

Save and Post are disabled while documents are loading, while the allocations exceed the amount, and while an earlier result is still unconfirmed.

A customer payment needs at least one invoice allocation of 0.01 or more when you post it. To receive money that is not for a specific invoice, use Make Payment and pick Record as advance (see Advances).

The Invoice Payments list (/ar/invoice-payments, page title Customer Payments) shows each payment's Number, Date, Customer, method and account, Amount, Allocated, Unapplied, the invoice numbers it is Applied To, and its Status (Draft, Posted or Reversed). A saved draft that has no allocation yet still appears here, so you can always find it again. Payments that belong to a sales receipt (cash sales) are managed from the receipt and are not listed as customer payments.

Reopen a draft payment

Click a draft customer payment and then Edit (the page is titled Edit Payment). The form comes back with the amount, method, account, reference, description and the saved allocations exactly as you left them; it does not re-run Auto Allocate behind your back. Auto-allocation only happens if you click Auto Allocate.

Invoices can change between the day you saved the draft and the day you reopen it (another payment, an applied credit note, a void). If a saved allocation is now bigger than what the invoice still owes, a notice appears: "A saved allocation is no longer available. Refresh current invoices, then review allocations before saving. Payment amount, reference and description are preserved." It lists the invoice, the amount you had requested and the amount now due. Click Refresh allocations to reload the customer's current open invoices, then allocate again or save the payment without allocations. If no open invoice is left, the form says "No open invoices remain. You may explicitly save this payment as an unallocated draft; no money is posted and it is not converted to an advance."

If you submit an out-of-date allocation anyway, the server stops it with "Invoice INV-… changed: requested 1,200.00; current outstanding 900.00. Your draft is unchanged. Edit the payment and refresh allocations, then explicitly reallocate or save an unallocated draft." Nothing is posted and the draft is untouched.

Only drafts created for documents can be edited here. A payment saved with Record as advance or Apply part; retain advance is managed from Payments → Customer Advances ("Use the advance workflow for advance funding; only draft document payments can be edited here.").

Posting a customer payment locks the organization record and the payment while it checks the allocations, so two people posting at once cannot allocate more than an invoice owes, and posting the same payment twice returns the existing posted payment.

Customer cheques. A cheque you receive from a customer is recorded with the Cheque payment method. It never uses your own cheque books. See Cheques.

Record a supplier payment

The supplier form is the same screen with supplier wording.

1. Go to Purchases → Payments & Credits → Supplier Payments and click the new payment button, or click Make Payment on a bill.
2. Select the Supplier and the Pay from account (a cash or bank account). Enter the Date, Payment Method, Reference (up to 255 characters) and Amount.
3. If the method is a cheque, a Cheque No. picker lists the available leaves from that bank account's cheque books. If the account has no cheque book you see "No cheque books yet for this bank account." Create one first. See Cheques.
4. The open bills appear with the columns Bill No., Date, Due Date, Balance and Allocation. Supplier rows also have checkboxes. The select-all checkbox runs auto-allocate.
5. Click Save or Post. Both stay disabled until the allocated total is more than zero.

Supplier payment errors:

Record a payment from a document

Most documents have a button that opens the right payment form with the details already filled in.

When the invoice or bill is in a foreign currency, the button opens the currency-aware New Payment form (/payments/create?type=receipt or ?type=disbursement&bill_id=…) instead of the base-currency form.

Expense payments

An expense's Record a payment opens a short form with the payment date, bank account, payment method, cheque no. (for cheque payments, using your cheque books), reference and amount. Posting it marks the expense paid or partially paid. Unposting an expense payment also unposts its expense.

Allocation: auto, smart and manual

The allocation toolbar has two modes.

If allocations ever add up to more than the payment, a warning appears ("Allocated amount exceeds the payment. Adjust allocations or click Auto Allocate.") and you cannot save.

The server checks the same limits again when you save. It rejects the payment with one of these messages:

• "Allocation exceeds the outstanding document balance."
• "Allocated amount exceeds the payment amount."
• "Document does not belong to the selected party."
• "Cannot allocate a payment to a void or reversed document."
• "Use the payment currency precision."

Example: smart rebalancing

Al Noor Trading LLC owes three invoices: INV-0101 (1 Sep, AED 4,200), INV-0107 (12 Sep, AED 3,150) and INV-0112 (25 Sep, AED 2,100). They pay AED 6,000.

1. Auto Allocate gives INV-0101 4,200.00, INV-0107 1,800.00 and INV-0112 0.00.
2. The customer asks you to settle INV-0112 in full, so you type 2,100.00 on that row. Smart mode keeps your 2,100.00, and takes the AED 2,100.00 excess back from the newest of the other rows. INV-0107 drops from 1,800.00 to 0.00 and INV-0101 gives up the remaining 300.00. The result is INV-0101 3,900.00, INV-0107 0.00 and INV-0112 2,100.00. Allocated = 6,000.00, Remaining = 0.00.

In Manual mode the same edit would be capped at the AED 0.00 that was unallocated. You would have to reduce another row first.

General payments (Make Payment)

Payments → Make Payment opens New Payment ("Receipt • Disbursement • Transfer"). Use it for foreign-currency payments, advances, refunds, transfers and money in or out that is not tied to a document.

1. Set the Payment Date and Payment Type:

   • Receipt is money in from a customer.
   • Disbursement is money out. Under Disbursement For, choose Supplier, or Customer Refund (Cash Out).
   • Transfer moves money between two of your own accounts.

   The type defaults to Disbursement when you arrive from a supplier or bill, and to Receipt otherwise.

2. Enter the Amount, Currency, Reference (up to 120 characters) and Description (up to 2,000 characters).

3. Choose the account. For a receipt or disbursement, use Cash & Bank and Payment Method. For a transfer, use From account and To account. You can add an account on the spot with New Account.

4. Under Counterparty & Allocations, pick the customer or supplier and a Payment purpose:

The form reminds you: "Document payments must be fully allocated. Choose advance or mixed to preserve an available balance." 5. Click Save Draft or Save & Post. Cancel leaves without saving.

Messages you may see:

Transfers

A transfer moves money between two of your cash or bank accounts, for example depositing petty cash in the bank. Choose Payment Type → Transfer, set From account, To account and the amount, then save. Transfers are listed under Vouchers → Transfers. The journal entry is Dr To account, Cr From account.

The payments list

Payments → View All (/payments) lists every payment. You can filter by Voucher Type, Account Type (Cash / Bank), Direction (Money In / Money Out), payment method, source (Sales Receipts, Invoice Payments, Supplier Payments, Expense Payments, Refund Receipts, Supplier Refunds, Transfers, Other Receipts, Other Payments), status and date range.

The Customer Payments and Supplier Payments menu items open the same list filtered by source. Posted payments show a green Posted status; direction (money in or money out) appears in a quiet second line under the type so every row has the same height.

Row actions depend on the status:

Payment statuses and lifecycle

Rules:

• Only drafts can be edited ("Only draft payments can be edited.") or deleted ("Only draft payments can be deleted."). A posted customer payment shows "Cannot update posted payment. Reverse it first."
• Payments cannot be voided. You reverse them, or unpost a general payment.
• Unpost is blocked while the payment still has allocations ("Payment is allocated to invoices — remove allocations first"), when its journal entry is matched in a bank reconciliation, or when its date is in a closed period.
• When a payment is unposted, its journal entries (including any FX gain/loss entry) are removed and the status returns to Draft.
• You cannot void an invoice or bill that has payments allocated to it: "Payments are allocated to this invoice/bill — remove allocations first".
• Funded advances are not unposted. Return them instead: "Use the advance refund or recovery service to reverse funded amounts."

Currency rules

• Record a payment and the supplier payment form work in your base currency only. They hide foreign-currency invoices and bills and show this notice: "Foreign-currency documents are paid separately using their document currency and dated exchange rate." The notice includes an Open currency-aware payment link. A foreign settlement sent through the base-currency forms is refused: "Use the currency-aware Payments form for foreign-currency settlements. No payment was posted."
• On New Payment, the payment currency must match the currency of every allocated document. Documents in other currencies are shown but disabled, with the note "This document is in {cur}. Change payment currency to {cur} to allocate it." To pay documents in two currencies, make two payments.
• The exchange rate is the saved rate for the payment date. There is no rate field on the form. If no rate exists you see "Missing exchange rate for {BASE} → {CUR} on {date}. Please add a rate in Settings → Exchange Rates before posting." See Multi-currency.
• The form shows an Estimated FX Gain or Estimated FX Loss before you post. On posting, the realized difference goes in a separate base-currency journal entry to FX gain (4304) or FX loss (6805). Both accounts must exist in your chart of accounts.

Advances

An advance is money received from a customer, or paid to a supplier, before an invoice or bill exists. Record it with Make Payment using Record as advance, or Apply part; retain advance. You manage the balances under Payments → Customer Advances and Supplier Advances. On those pages you apply an advance to documents later, refund it or record a supplier recovery, and reverse an application.

Advances need the Advance Payments feature on your plan. The full guide is Customer advance payments.

Two reporting rules matter here. Funding an advance moves money into the bank but not into Accounts Receivable, so it is not on the customer's receivables statement; the held amount is shown separately as Customer advances held (liability). And applying an advance to an invoice is a settlement, not new cash: the Payments Received report counts real cash receipts only, so it leaves out the non-cash application of an advance. An advance application still reduces the invoice like a payment and shows in the invoice's Payments table.

The payments behind an advance — the funding receipt and a refund or recovery — each have a printable voucher. Print gives a Total Received voucher for money coming in (funding a customer advance) or a Total Paid voucher for money going out (refunding a customer advance), with the payment number, date, status, the party, the account used and the amount in the advance currency and in your base currency.

Journal entries

Bank charges, withholding tax and early-payment discounts are not part of a payment. Record bank fees as an expense, or as an adjusting entry during reconciliation.

Worked example (AED)

Al Noor Trading LLC has invoice INV-0115 for AED 10,500.00 (10,000 + 5% VAT 500). They transfer AED 12,000.00 to your Emirates NBD account. You agreed to keep the extra AED 1,500 as an advance on the next order.

Use Make Payment → Receipt, Cash & Bank = Emirates NBD, purpose Apply part; retain advance, and allocate 10,500.00 to INV-0115.

INV-0115 becomes Paid. AED 1,500.00 appears under Customer Advances, ready to apply to the next invoice.

If the result is not confirmed

If the connection drops or the server does not respond while you save, SolaCount does not resubmit the payment. Instead:

• The form locks, so all save buttons are disabled.
• You see "The payment result could not be confirmed. Review the payments list before creating another payment." with a Review payments button.
• A dialog titled Status not confirmed says "We could not confirm whether the change completed. Check the current status before submitting again." Click Check current status.

Open the payments list and look for the payment before you enter it again. Each form carries a unique request identity, so if the same submission does reach the server twice, it returns the existing payment ("Existing payment recovered.") rather than creating a duplicate. If you asked to post but the payment was only saved as a draft, you see "The payment was saved as a draft. Review the payments list before posting; do not create another payment." On the New Payment form, a save that is still unconfirmed after 45 seconds is treated the same way.

Permissions and plan

A missing permission produces "You do not have access to this action. Contact your workspace administrator."

Date checks are reported on the payment date:

• "Cannot post transaction: Date {date} is on or before the organization lock date {lock}."
• "No accounting period exists for date {date}. Please create an accounting period first."
• "…is closed. To correct an error, post an adjusting entry in an open period."

See Fiscal years & lock dates.

Tips and common problems

• An invoice is missing from the allocation table. It may be in a foreign currency (use Open currency-aware payment), still a draft, void, or already paid.
• You can't unpost. Use Remove Allocations first. If it still fails, the payment may be matched in a bank reconciliation or dated in a closed period.
• Someone overpaid. Use Make Payment with Apply part; retain advance instead of over-allocating.
• Reopened a draft and the allocations are gone or flagged. An invoice changed after you saved. Click Refresh allocations and allocate again; the amount, reference and description are kept.
• The deposit account you want is not in the list. You chose a method that points to the other kind of account. Cash shows only cash accounts; every other method shows bank accounts. Pick a different method, or leave the method empty to see every eligible account.
• A payment against a cash sale is missing from the list. Receipt-owned payments belong to the sales receipt; open the receipt.
• A cheque bounced. Mark the leaf returned (see Cheques), then reverse the payment yourself.

Related

• Record a payment (how-to)
• Customer advance payments
• Cheques
• Banking & reconciliation
• Invoices · Bills · Expenses
• Multi-currency
• Refund receipts · Supplier refunds · Customer credit and balances · Sales receipts