Outstanding Balance

[Crescentbunny]

Hello all, please excuse me if this question has been answered elsewhere, but I did spend most of the day on these forums searching for a similar topic and didn't quite see what I was looking for.

When I get a check at the beginning of the month from an account and they don't include an invoice number I have trouble finding an easy way to figure out which invoice to apply the payment to in some situations. For Example:

The school district brings in tons of vehicles to us...and when I open up their account I'll get the notification that there is a balance owed on this account, but the message doesnt indicate which invoice the total is on. When you click on Update Cusomter on the customer screen there is also no invoice indicated. Obviously it's a huge pain and terribly time consuming to go through every single vehicle under this account to try and figure out which it was that was in recently to apply the payment to.

The only other way I can think of is to go into reports and scroll through the balance owed reports until I find which invoice it is I'm looking for so I can apply the payment.

Is there a better more obvious way to do this that I am just missing? Thank you in advance for taking the time to consider this message.

[timbre4]

Welcome to the forum and thanks for your question.

Press F5 (Utilities, Batch Payment), enter Customer or Company Name and this brings up a grid with the outstanding invoices. I believe this would help.

[steven kiser]

For one reason or another i have had companies hold an invoice from payment. When i go to batch payment and the amount is other than billed and there is no listing on the check stub i subtract the amount paid from the amount owed to see if i can identify the order not paid. If not i make a copy of the check, deposit it and after i call the company and figure out what isn't paid i post the payment. It's a pain in the a** but if i don't do it right then things get really messed up. I had a companies book keeper decide to deduct all the shop supplies from the invoice and my daughter i think posted the amount paid against the amount owed, left the balance and for someone with my accounting abilities when i saw it months later with interest accrued i had no idea what was going on. There was no way to go back and figure out what caused it. I keep a payment ledger (hand written) with all payments, discounts and reasons for it. All payments are dated so i can look back into it by looking up a customers order date and going to the corresponding place in the ledger. I always fall back on "watch the pennies and the dollars will be fine". I'll fight for the pennies simply because if i don't i feel the person will go for the nickels and dimes then the quarters and dollars if i don't. If you don't want to pay the base shop supplies i'll line item the crap out of the order. A 1/4" nut .18, 1/4" X 3 bolt .89. I'll type until i get cramps.

[Crescentbunny]

Thanks Timbre4 that hit the spot exactly. I hadn't thought to check through things in batch payment. Mr. Steven Kiser thanks for that information, I actually have a very similar system that I keep in Excel spread sheets so it was nice to hear I'm not completely crazy and someone else does it too. I was raised by the pennies philosophy so we're kindred spirits in that reguard. I'm the CSR at our shop as well so a lot of the guys think I'm crazy for making it that complicated but I'm sure the owner appreciates it so it's worth it in my opinion.