Skip to main content
S
Sharmonet57
October 9, 2023
Question

Overpayments on recurring invoices

  • October 9, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 0 views

We are a small, private school and send out recurring invoices to our parents each month for tuition payments. We have several parents who overpay each month, I think, because they don't want to subtract odd amounts from their check registers. However, this is creating an issue for me in receiving payments.  I would think that I would be able to enter the amount received and any amount that was over and above the invoice amount would go back to the customer as a running credit balance.  However, Quick Books insists on using these small overpayment amounts from previous months toward the new invoice.  The way it shows up when I am trying to post the new payment is very confusing to me. Can someone help me understand how to handle this?  Thank you!

1 reply

J
JamaicaA
October 9, 2023

Hello @Sharmonet57, 

 

I understand that it can be confusing to know how to handle a customer's credit balance on recurring invoices in QuickBooks. I'm here to assist you and provide you with options to track the overpayments seamlessly. 

 

When you receive a payment that exceeds the invoice amount, the spare value will reflect as a credit balance for your customer. To offset this, the system will show you the overpayment amounts from previous months to associate with the new invoice. 

 

To apply the credit as an advance payment towards the next invoice, you can select the customer balance from the Credits section when accepting a customer payment using the Receive Payment button. If you don't link them, the Customer Balance Detail report will show that both the invoice and the credit memo have open balances. They will also appear as Open on the Customer and Sales transaction pages. 

 

Additionally, you can enable the Automatically Apply Credits feature to allocate the remainder to the next open sales transaction. If the credit matches the amount on the invoice, it will show as Closed. Otherwise, the credit memo will display as Closed, and the invoice will show as Partial. For more information on this feature, refer to this article: Create and apply credit memos or delayed credits in QuickBooks Online. 

 

If you don't want to use the credit towards an invoice, you can refund the customer or enter the overpayment as a tip in QuickBooks. To learn more about these options, please refer to this guide: Handle a customer credit or overpayment in QuickBooks Online. 

 

Feel free to check out this reference for various ways of tracking receivables in the program: Record invoice payments in QuickBooks Online.

 

Hop on to this thread if you have more questions about handling customer payments. I want to make sure you have everything set for your private school. If you're still confused, don't hesitate to add some follow-up questions. I'll be here to answer them.

Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement