Payments
Payments records money received from customers and how that money settles their sales invoices. It keeps the receipt, its posting and its allocations separate, so you can record a receipt before deciding which bills it pays.
Open Payments from the application dashboard. This guide covers the current customer receipt workspace. Supplier payments belong to Purchasing; expense payments and donation receipts use their own module workflows.
The customer receipt journey
Recording a receipt does not charge a card, move funds through a bank or prove a bank deposit cleared. Use actual payment evidence and your organisation's reconciliation process.
Choose a task
| Task | Guide |
|---|---|
| Check permissions and lookup access | Access |
| Prepare customer, invoice and ledger setup | Before you start |
| Understand status and document references | Terms and statuses |
| Find a receipt by number, reference or customer | Find payments |
| Record a new customer receipt | Create a receipt |
| Inspect amounts and allocation history | Review a payment |
| Make a Draft available for allocation | Post a receipt |
| Apply money to a bill | Allocate to an invoice |
| Handle split receipts or multiple invoices | Allocation patterns |
| Keep excess money or an advance on account | Advances and overpayments |
| Understand transaction/base amounts | Currencies and precision |
| Abandon an incorrect Draft | Cancel and correct |
| Reconcile cash, allocations and credits | Reconciliation |
| Practise complete scenarios | Worked examples |
The running example
Bright Home Supplies has a Posted invoice for Café Aroma totalling GBP 327.60. Farah records an actual bank transfer of 200, then a later receipt of 127.60. These are invented training references, continuing the Invoicing example.
| Person | Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Farah | Accounts: prepares receipts, posts and allocates when authorised |
| Nadia | Accounts reviewer in the examples: checks identity, evidence and amounts |
| Omar | Sales: confirms the underlying order/customer references |
| Stage | Receipt A available | Invoice amount due |
|---|---|---|
| No receipt recorded | — | 327.60 |
| Save Draft receipt A for 200 | 200 shown, not yet allocatable | 327.60 |
| Post receipt A | 200 | 327.60 |
| Allocate receipt A to the invoice | 0 | 127.60 |
Posting alone does not settle the bill. Allocation does. A payment can be fully Allocated while its target invoice remains Partially paid.
Current screen boundaries
The register description mentions customer and expense records, but the current backend search returns Customer payment records only. Its customer detail/actions also reject other workflow types. Do expense work in Expense and donation work in Charity; do not expect their records here because of the broad description.
The register currently has no New customer receipt button. The creation page exists at the application's /payments/new route for authorised users. Use an approved application link/bookmark to that page; the guide does not imply a missing button exists. See Create a receipt.
The generic workspace has no edit receipt, delete, posted cancellation, refund, reversal, bank import/export or allocation-edit/remove action. These limits are explained alongside the relevant tasks.