Payments

Payments record the money your customers pay you. You apply each payment to one or more of the customer's issued invoices, in full or in part, and Modulix keeps every invoice's balance due and payment status (Unpaid, Partially paid, Paid or Overdue) up to date on its own. For unpaid invoices you can send payment reminders by hand or automatically through workflows.

Where payments fit

1. An issued invoice starts with its full total as Balance due.
2. You record a payment, from the invoice or from the Payments tab, and apply it to the invoice.
3. The invoice's Paid amount, Balance due and Payment status update immediately.
4. With the Accounts Receivable module enabled, the payment is posted to the general ledger: the bank is debited and the customer's receivable is credited. See Accounts receivable and General ledger.

Before you begin

• Permissions: payments are only for administrators by default. You need sales.payment.read to see the Payments tab, sales.payment.write to record and apply payments, and sales.payment.delete to delete them. See Permissions.
• Invoices: payments can only be applied to issued invoices (not drafts, not credit notes) of the same customer and in the same currency.

Key concepts

Concept	What it means
Number	Given when the payment is recorded, for example PAY-00001.
Method	How the customer paid: Bank transfer (default), Card, Cash, Check, Direct debit or Other.
Applied	The part of the payment allocated to invoices. Each invoice can receive up to its balance due.
Unapplied	The rest of the payment, kept on the customer's account. You can apply it later, for example to the customer's next invoice.
Balance due	On an invoice: total, minus payments applied, minus issued credit notes.

Payment statuses

Every issued invoice has a Payment status, computed automatically:

Payment status	Meaning
Unpaid	Nothing has been paid or credited, and the due date has not passed.
Partially paid	Part of the total has been paid or credited, and the due date has not passed.
Paid	Nothing is left: payments and credit notes cover the total.
Overdue	Something is left and the due date has passed.

The status is recalculated whenever a payment is recorded, changed or deleted, and whenever a credit note against the invoice is issued. Invoices also become Overdue as their due dates pass: Modulix checks every 15 minutes. Each change is saved as an update of the invoice, so workflows can react to it (see Send reminders automatically).

Open the payments list

Select Sales in the main menu, then the Payments tab, or use the command palette: Open payments.

The list shows each payment's Number, Customer, Date, Method, Amount and Unapplied amount. Filter by Method, or select With an unapplied part to find payments not fully applied to invoices. Search with Search payments; hidden columns include Reference and Applied.

The Payments tab, with the filter for payments that have an unapplied part.

Record a payment from an invoice

The quickest way to record a payment for one invoice:

1. Open the issued invoice and select Record a payment. The dialog shows the invoice number and its balance due.
2. Check the Amount (default: the balance due). Enter less for a partial payment. It cannot be more than the balance due.
3. Check the Date (default: today) and the Method, and optionally enter a Reference, such as the bank transfer reference or check number.
4. Select Record a payment.

Recording a payment directly from an invoice.

The payment is created for the invoice's customer and currency and applied entirely to that invoice. It appears on the invoice's Payments card.

Record a payment from the Payments tab

Use this when one payment covers several invoices, or when you do not know yet which invoices it pays.

1. On the Payments tab, select New payment.
2. Choose the Customer and enter the Amount. Both are required.
3. Check the Date, Currency and Method, and optionally enter a Reference and Notes.
4. Leave Apply it to the oldest open invoices checked to apply the payment automatically to the customer's open invoices in that currency, the oldest due date first, as far as the amount goes. Clear it to apply the payment yourself afterwards.
5. Select Save. The payment's page opens.

Whatever is not applied stays Unapplied on the customer's account.

Apply a payment to invoices

You can change how a payment is applied at any time.

1. Open the payment and select Apply to invoices.
2. The dialog lists the customer's issued invoices in the payment's currency that still have a balance (plus those this payment already pays), oldest due date first, with their Balance due.
3. Enter the Amount applied to each invoice. Leave an invoice empty to apply nothing to it.
4. Select Save.

Spreading one payment across several open invoices.

Rules:

• Each invoice can receive at most its balance due (counting what this payment already applied to it).
• The total applied cannot be more than the payment's amount.
• If the dialog says "No open invoices of this customer in this currency.", the customer has nothing to pay in that currency.

The payment's page lists the invoices it pays on the Invoices paid card, each with its payment status, due date and the amount applied. The header shows the Unapplied amount, if any.

Edit or delete a payment

• Edit changes the payment's customer, date, amount, currency, method, reference or notes. To change the customer or currency of a payment that is already applied, first remove its allocations with Apply to invoices. The amount cannot be lowered below what is already applied.
• Delete asks for confirmation: "The invoices it paid are unpaid again by that much." Their balances and payment statuses are recalculated.

With Accounts Receivable enabled, changing a payment's amount, date, customer or currency reverses its ledger entries and posts them again; deleting it reverses them. See Accounts receivable.

Send a payment reminder

On an issued invoice that is not paid, select Send a reminder. Modulix emails the invoice's contact a reminder in the invoice's language, with the balance due, the due date and the invoice PDF attached. The toast says "Reminder sent", and the invoice's Last reminder date is updated.

The invoice must have a contact with an email address. You need sales.invoice.write to send reminders.

Send reminders automatically

The Sales module adds a Send a payment reminder action to Workflow Automation. It takes the Invoice (id) and an optional Message (default: a reminder in the invoice's language). For example:

• A workflow that runs when an invoice is updated, with the condition that Payment changed to Overdue, and the action Send a payment reminder with the invoice {{record.id}}.
• A workflow on a date trigger some days after the invoice's Due date, with the condition that Payment is not Paid, and the same action.

Track what customers owe

• On the Invoices tab, sort or filter by Payment and Balance due to see unpaid and overdue invoices. Save the filter as a view to come back to it.
• On the Payments tab, With an unapplied part shows money received but not yet applied.
• With the Accounts Receivable module, you also get customer balances, aging (0–30, 31–60, 61–90, 90+ days) and customer statements. See Accounts receivable.

A payment applied to two invoices, with an unapplied remainder.

Related records

• Invoices: each invoice lists its payments on the Payments card. See Invoicing.
• Customers: companies with payments cannot be deleted. Merging companies moves their payments to the company that remains. See Contacts and companies.
• Bank accounts: once payments are posted to the ledger, the Banking module can match bank statement lines to them.

Permissions

Payment permissions are not scoped: anyone who has them can see and change all payments.

Permission	What it allows	Granted by default to
sales.payment.read	View payments. Shows the Payments tab.	Admin
sales.payment.write	Record payments, apply them to invoices and edit them.	Admin
sales.payment.delete	Delete payments.	Admin
sales.invoice.write	Send payment reminders.	Admin

Troubleshooting

• "At most …" when applying an amount: the amount is more than the invoice's balance due. Apply the rest elsewhere or leave it unapplied.
• "More than the payment": the amounts applied add up to more than the payment. Lower them, or edit the payment's amount.
• "Remove its allocations first": you changed the customer or currency of an applied payment. Clear its amounts in Apply to invoices first.
• "The invoice has no contact with an email" when sending a reminder: add an email address to the invoice's contact in Contacts. Issued invoices cannot be edited, so choose the contact before issuing.
• An invoice stays Overdue after payment: check that the payment is applied to that invoice (not left unapplied) and is in the invoice's currency.