# Late fees miscalculated **URL:** \ **Category:** Uncategorized\ **Created:** [June 3, 2020, 7:09pm UTC](https://forum.manager.io/t/late-fees-miscalculated/28557 "2020-06-03T19:09:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![RichT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@RichT](https://forum.manager.io/u/RichT)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2020, 7:09pm UTC](https://forum.manager.io/t/late-fees-miscalculated/28557/1 "2020-06-03T19:09:48Z")
I’ve been using Manager Desktop for over a year and never had an issue that I couldn’t solve. However recently it seems that late fees are being calculated from the Invoice total not the Balance due. This is not the case with the software in the past. Late fees should be calculated from the Balance due. I believe that this is a bug that could have been created with a recent update to the software. Thanks for your attention to this issue. ---
**Author:** ![Tut](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.manager.io/tut/32/3286_2.png) [@Tut](https://forum.manager.io/u/Tut)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2020, 8:25pm UTC](https://forum.manager.io/t/late-fees-miscalculated/28557/2 "2020-06-03T20:25:28Z")
I cannot duplicate this. Below is a screen shot of the mini-statement from the bottom a sales invoice for €100.00 created 1/1/2020 with monthly late payment fees of 1%. Due date was net 30 days. The late fee alert appeared in the Sales Invoices tab and was followed repetitively, interspersed with two receipts: ![Screen Shot 2020-06-03 at 2.12.04 PM](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/uploads/manager1/original/3X/e/4/e4dc2690acdc48d00366dc958dfad2ed1b365ae3.png) Late fee of €1.00 was applied 2/1/2020. Partial payment of €75 was received 2/15/2020. Late fee of €0.26 was applied on the balance due—not the original total—on 3/1/2020. Late fee of €0.26 was applied on 4/1/2020. Late fee of €0.27 was applied on 5/1/2020. This has gone up because the balance due has crept upwards due to other late fees to €26.52. The late fee was rounded up to the nearest cent. Final receipt of €26.79 was posted on 5/15/2020, leaving zero balance due. This is exactly how the program should have performed, always calculating the 1% late fee based on current balance due. If you are seeing anything different, please illustrate with screen shots. ---
**Author:** ![RichT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@RichT](https://forum.manager.io/u/RichT)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2020, 8:59pm UTC](https://forum.manager.io/t/late-fees-miscalculated/28557/3 "2020-06-05T20:59:14Z")
I have played with this software now enough to understand what it does. It is confusing for me because we use the recurring invoice feature that only allows for designating the number of days to a Due Date rather than allowing the entry of a “hard” date. I missed crediting a payment on a Due Date by 1 day and rather than considering the payment, the software calculated the late fee for the entire invoice total. OK I get, it but it looks wrong to the customer. Perhaps some allowance for a “grace period” or running the late fee calculation from the date it is processed rather than the day after the Due Date would work better. Just my suggestion. If you have already explored these options please let me know if they aren’t practical or there is some other reason for them not to work. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Tut](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.manager.io/tut/32/3286_2.png) [@Tut](https://forum.manager.io/u/Tut)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2020, 10:38pm UTC](https://forum.manager.io/t/late-fees-miscalculated/28557/4 "2020-06-05T22:38:50Z")
> [@RichT](#): > > we use the recurring invoice feature that only allows for designating the number of days to a Due Date rather than allowing the entry of a “hard” date. Recurring transactions (of all types) work that way because “hard” due dates, as you call them, are unknown. The recurring transaction form is only a template for creating an actual transaction. Once you have created an actual sales invoice, it is indistinguishable from one created any other way. The due date can be edited to a firm date, if you prefer that presentation, before sending the invoice. > [@RichT](#): > > I missed crediting a payment on a Due Date by 1 day and rather than considering the payment, the software calculated the late fee for the entire invoice total. How did you expect the software to know the difference between your mistake and a real late payment? If you simply did not get around to entering the receipt until a day later (a very common occurrence), all you have to do is put the earlier date on the receipt. Then no late fee will be applied. > [@RichT](#): > > it looks wrong to the customer. You are the one who chose to impose late fees. If you do not like the impression they create (that you actually mean what you say in contract terms), do not impose them. If you have second thoughts, you can always delete them. Read the Guide: [https://www.manager.io/guides/10584](https://www.manager.io/guides/10584). > [@RichT](#): > > Perhaps some allowance for a “grace period”… That is what the due date already is. The customer owes the money from the issue date. Many businesses consider invoices payable upon presentation. If you want a longer grace period, enter later due dates. > [@RichT](#): > > …from the date it is processed rather than the day after the Due Date would work better. The software only knows what you record. Actual data entry is frequently days, weeks, or even months after an event. Nothing is ever recorded based on processing dates. The fact that a current date is autofilled on new transactions is only a timesaving step. Dates can **always** be edited, before or after creating the transaction. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://forum.manager.io/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2020, 12:42am UTC](https://forum.manager.io/t/late-fees-miscalculated/28557/5 "2020-06-06T00:42:44Z")
> [@RichT](#): > > Perhaps some allowance for a “grace period” or running the late fee calculation from the date it is processed rather than the day after the Due Date would work better. I can see value in Manager supporting some date arithmetic functions in values displayed to the customer / employee. In business I routinely set clear requirements but only demand penalty payments when the written requirements are clearly and unambiguously exceeded. Getting too trigger happy increased the risk I, rather than my customer, is at fault and cost me more in loss of goodwill rather than I gain in regular bill payment. Calculating pay period dates is another potential application of date arithmetic I suspect the solution would be part of Manger supporting calculated values during data entry, which has already been suggested to payslip taxation, depreciation schedules and other applications. Perhaps this is part of > [@Request - Late Fee options](https://forum.manager.io/t/request-late-fee-options/11729): > > There are a few threads about this, but not one specifically requesting the change. Here’s a reply from @lubos back in 2015 answering why only ‘monthly’ is available as an option. The user wanted a daily option. Please consider updating this feature to have additional options: daily weekly fortnightly The current implementation of ‘monthly’ works, but lacks practicality for those that would rather a much shorter time frame. Personally, I’d prefer the ‘weekly’ option the most out of what I … and is similar to > [@Late Fee Issue](https://forum.manager.io/t/late-fee-issue/20253): > > I am running version 19.1.15 and noticed with our first round of late fees, it is calculating late fees on paid invoices. Here is our situation: Invoices went out January 1 and were due on January 15. On January 16, the system gave me the warning at the top saying I have new late fees that need to be assessed, we assessed all of them and resent invoices. Some customers we decided not to enforce them as payment arrived the very next day. I deleted the late payment fee then posted the receipt a… ---
**Author:** ![Tut](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.manager.io/tut/32/3286_2.png) [@Tut](https://forum.manager.io/u/Tut)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2020, 1:08am UTC](https://forum.manager.io/t/late-fees-miscalculated/28557/6 "2020-06-06T01:08:25Z")
I agree with @Patch that a more useful change would be late fee options. There are too many ways already available to avoid irritating a customer with a “one-day-over-the-line” late fee to introduce more complexity to when the program calculates it. Invoices can always be edited to remove the option, or not sent, or the fee can be deleted, or… ---
**Author:** ![RichT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@RichT](https://forum.manager.io/u/RichT)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2020, 4:38pm UTC](https://forum.manager.io/t/late-fees-miscalculated/28557/7 "2020-06-06T16:38:41Z")
I really appreciate all of your comments and I do understand. Of course there are always circumstances that can not be fully taken into account. In my case I got involved in an office building with tenants that have often been late payers. I have been slowly “teaching” them to pay before a Due Date with late fees but only after an internal grace period of @ 5 days. So if a rent invoice hasn’t been paid by the 5th of a month it does not really matter what day the late fee is calculated. In the instance that threw me, the tenant had made a payment after the Due Date but before I ran late fees on the 5th (or later) of the month, but the late fee was calculated on the total amount billed. As was pointed out we are not trying to irritate our customers with a late fee being applied the day after a Due Date and I often reverse any late fees anyway if the tenant pays late but subsequently pays on time. And the “impression” I refer to is not the application of a late fee but the amount of the late charge if it does not take into account any partial payments that have been made before a statement is generated. Also, if I extend the actual Due Date in the template of recurring transactions, that date is shown on the invoice which kind of defeats the purpose when trying to “teach old dogs new tricks”. I’m trying to control this by turning late fees off in the templates and on for tenants that are late well beyond the Due Date. But this leads to more manual work on my part. I think the thing that would help in my case is a separate date for the application/calculation of late fees beyond the “official” Due Date. But I don’t know how many others may go through this same type of situation. ---
**Author:** ![Tut](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.manager.io/tut/32/3286_2.png) [@Tut](https://forum.manager.io/u/Tut)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2020, 5:57pm UTC](https://forum.manager.io/t/late-fees-miscalculated/28557/8 "2020-06-06T17:57:45Z")
> [@RichT](#): > > the “impression” I refer to is not the application of a late fee but the amount of the late charge if it does not take into account any partial payments that have been made before a statement is generated. To be clear, Manager does take into account any partial payments **recorded** on dates before the next late fee is calculated. > [@RichT](#): > > the thing that would help in my case is a separate date for the application/calculation of late fees beyond the “official” Due Date. There is a way you could do this. Assuming the actual due date is specified in your lease agreement so the tenant doesn’t really need to be reminded of it, you could set a due date several days beyond the agreed due date, then check the box on the sales invoice to hide the due date. The tenant would not see the later date, but Manager would wait until then to notify you late fees are due. You could even put the agreed due date into a custom field if you want to show it on the invoice. Just be aware the program will ignore it. ---
**Author:** ![Patch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Patch](https://forum.manager.io/u/Patch)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2020, 11:06pm UTC](https://forum.manager.io/t/late-fees-miscalculated/28557/9 "2020-06-06T23:06:05Z")
> [@Tut](#): > > You could even put the agreed due date into a custom field That’s what I was intending to use a date calculation with, as the contractual due date will be different for each invoice. Including a grace period between printed due date and generated late fees based on enhanced late fee parameters is probably better still. Manually doing it via a manual custom field would also work but the work involved in doing it is probably similar to manually deleting the late fee during the grace period ---
**Author:** ![RichT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@RichT](https://forum.manager.io/u/RichT)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2020, 12:08pm UTC](https://forum.manager.io/t/late-fees-miscalculated/28557/10 "2020-06-08T12:08:30Z")
Thanks for the advice about using “hide the due date” to help manage this issue. I saw this listed as an option but never thought to use it this way. I’ll give this a try and see how it works out for me. However, I’m not clear on how to implement a custom field for the invoice. Is this something I can create when setting up recurring invoice templates? It is this something I would do after I create the invoice? ---
**Author:** ![Tut](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.manager.io/tut/32/3286_2.png) [@Tut](https://forum.manager.io/u/Tut)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2020, 12:53pm UTC](https://forum.manager.io/t/late-fees-miscalculated/28557/11 "2020-06-08T12:53:54Z")
> [@RichT](#): > > I’m not clear on how to implement a custom field for the invoice. Read the Guide: [https://www.manager.io/guides/8941](https://www.manager.io/guides/8941). > [@RichT](#): > > Is this something I can create when setting up recurring invoice templates? No, you must create the custom field first. Then it will be available on the recurring sales invoice template. If you wish, the content of the custom field can always be the same, such as “Payment is due in 30 days,” (while you have set the hidden due date for 35 days). You can set this under Form Defaults. Read [https://www.manager.io/guides/14059](https://www.manager.io/guides/14059). ---
**Author:** ![Ealfardan](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.manager.io/ealfardan/32/63166_2.png) [@Ealfardan](https://forum.manager.io/u/Ealfardan)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2023, 2:55pm UTC](https://forum.manager.io/t/late-fees-miscalculated/28557/12 "2023-01-18T14:55:16Z")
Closed on January 18, 2023, 2:55pm UTC