We sign a contract with a client for example for $10,000
We collect payments
We issue the invoice once the service has been fully delivered
Is there a way in Manager to track the Customer’s balance against the contract? In other words, we need to know how much the Customer owes against the contract, for example if they paid $2,000 already, we need to know they have $8,000 remaining.
I thought about using Quotes or Orders, but it seems I can’t apply a payment to those to keep track of a balance.
Any help is more than appreciate it and thanks in advance!
Issue a Sales Invoice and change the heading to Proforma Invoice or whatever you want.
Presumably when you sign the contract, the amount is owed - assuming delivery of the goods or service
What exactly is the contract for?
Another way might be to issue a Sales Order and then create partial invoices when the payments are received. The Sales Order will then show the balance to be delivered
These are advanced payments towards a trip, basically the client pays 100% of the service one month prior to traveling.
I don’t like the idea of issuing invoices before the service is delivered, the company doesn’t want to impact results until the clients have finished their trips.
That’s why I was looking for a way to apply the payments to something else than an invoice and be able to check their balance against that “something else”. I’m afraid this isn’t possible, right?
Thank you @Joe91! Those are indeed very interesting and useful. The only thing missing is the possibility to see the balance against the contract, right?
I’m asking to confirm since the example using the special account is very interesting and seems to fit well but if I understood correctly, there is no way of putting the total contract value somewhere to calculate a balance against the payments.
@germanliu, you are expecting Manager to function as a reservation management system, which it is not. It’s an accounting system. The time for entering a sales invoice in an accounting system is when—according to your contract with the customer—the obligation for the customer to pay is incurred. In your case, this is one month prior to traveling, not after the trip is over. So record the advance payments according to the Guides already linked; issue the sales invoice when the money is obligated; enter receipts as money is paid by the customer. The sales invoice will show the total amount, all receipts, and balance remaining.
The sales invoice will do that for you if you create it when the money is owed.
You may also have other considerations that would modify the timeline for accounting transactions. For example, you could raise the complete sales invoice when the customer books, with the due date being one month before travel. That will give you even better visibility. If, by chance there is a cancellation, well…that’s what credit notes are for.
The client usually makes 2 payments. One when booking (could be a year in advance) and another one one month prior to embarkation. The company has no problem in doing the sales invoice when the last payment is done (they would prefer after the service is rendered though), however, doing the sales invoice when the first payment is done is what they want to avoid since the service is delivered too far in the future and recording the result of the transaction at that time is not right.
I agree with your comment about the reservation system, I thought that there could be a workaround using some of Manager’s great features.