Implementation of automatic credit allocation in Manager was a concept which was always causing issues among users. The latest version is attempting to solve these issues.
Eliminating automatic overpayment entries
In theory, automatic allocation of overpayments keeps accounts receivable and accounts payable tidy even if bookkeeping errors occur because overpayments on one invoice are automatically re-allocated to different invoice. This means invoices are either paid or unpaid - never overpaid.
Itâs a great feature until itâs not.
For example, your customer might pay the same invoice twice by mistake. Manager will âhideâ this fact by automatically allocating the duplicate payment to the next unpaid invoice. Then customer pays the next unpaid invoice but since the invoice has been already paid or partially paid by previous payment, new payment results in overpayment which will roll onto next invoice. And so on.
When customer realizes theyâve paid twice some older invoice, it can take a lot of effort to untangle these rolling overpayments. In other words, Manager does save the time in the beginning but it really just defers inevitable - at some point, the overpayment will have to be dealt with and it will be more difficult to untangle these payments after longer period of time.
Better solution is to simply leave overpayments on invoices sit untouched so they can be dealt with manually without automatically affecting other invoices which might have been settled properly.
So the latest version is no longer going to automatically create automatic âOverpaymentâ entries on invoices. If invoice is overpaid, it will be shown on Sales Invoices or Purchase Invoices tab as Overpaid.
Invoice being Overpaid is considered a bookkeeping error. You should click on negative figure under Balance due column to examine ledger for the invoice and make sure the balance due comes to zero.
There are number of ways how to fix it.
- If customer has paid twice, you can simply
Spend moneyto pay them back overpaid amount. This will bring balance due on invoice to zero thus invoice will be marked as âPaid in fullâ - If customer has other unpaid invoices, you can edit the transaction which received money and re-allocate to other invoice(s) which will again bring invoice balance to zero thus invoice will be marked as âPaid in fullâ
- If customer doesnât have other unpaid invoices and doesnât want to be paid back because they want to apply overpaid amount to future invoice(s), edit the transaction which received money and do not allocate overpaid amount to any invoice. This will make Manager automatically allocate only portion of the amount to make invoice âPaid in fullâ while reminder will be applied automatically to the next issued invoice.
Whatever approach you choose, in order to bring invoice to âPaid in fullâ status, the balance due amount must be brought to zero.
The same applies for suppliers & purchase invoices.
Making all transactions under invoice ledger clickable
By eliminating automatic allocations of overpayments, the ledger of invoice is now more straightforward. This means we can take things a bit further.
Previously, when you were receiving money (or spending money) on invoices and didnât select any invoice, Manager would automatically spread the amount across unpaid invoices.
This would result in Automatic payment using available credit transaction on which you werenât able to click Edit button.
The latest version doesnât show Automatic payment using available credit in invoice ledger anymore. Instead, you will always see which specific transaction has credited the invoice and you can click Edit button on such transaction. This is useful when transaction was automatically allocated to one invoice but youâd like to explicitly allocate it to different one.
This is actually a small change and only affects overpayments when specific invoices are designated. It does not affect how Manager behaves when money is paid or received and no invoice is selected. In the latter case, the exact same automatic allocation process as before occurs.