Record Payment and Settle to Invoice

Overview

• There are two main types of payments tracked in Wild Apricot (see Payments overview)
  • Online payments: for self-service transactions - these are recorded and settled automatically once online payment goes through
  • Manual (Offline) Payments: manually recorded by site administrators

• Payments should be settled (matched) to outstanding invoices (see invoices overview).
  • Payment is automatically settled to invoice when invoice is paid online
  • Payment can also be applied 'on account' - recorded for a contact, and then manually settled to outstanding invoice(s) afterwards

1. Donations are recorded slightly differently, see recording donations 2. In the current version, payment settlement has to be started from payments (i.e. locate the payment from Finances -> Payments & Refunds to settle it to any outstanding invoice(s)).

Manually recording payments

This applies to payments received outside of Wild Apricot, e.g. check, cash, wire transfer, etc.

There are two ways to record payments:

• For a particular invoice
• On account payment i.e. apply payment to a contact, not a specific invoice.

Please note: all payments, including payments recorded manually, will be reflected on the contact's profile (see Invoices Overview)

Recording payment for a particular invoice

• Obviously, payments can only be recorded for invoices with open balance (unpaid or partially paid)
• Find the originating invoice (see finding invoice)

The [Record Payment] button brings up the payment entry screen:

• Amount: The payment amount, must be equal or less than the invoice amount
• Date: Date payment was received
• Tender: How the payment was made (see Tenders)

• After you hit [Save], payment amount will be automatically settled against this invoice
• Invoice and contact balance are updated accordingly

Recording Payment on account

If you can't find the matching invoice or you simply want to record payment 'on account' instead:

From payments (Finances -> Payments & Refunds) use the [Record Payment] button to bring up the on account payment entry screen:

Select the contact you want to record payment for, and fill in the amount, tender, internal notes, etc.

Settling recorded payment

Any payment sitting on the account can be settled to one or more open invoices:

Print or resent payment receipt

Once payment is recorded the system automatically generates a payment receipt which you can view, print or re-send to that contact. (See also receipt customization)

View from contact's profile 

After the administrator's manual recording of payment in the example above, here is how it is reflected on a contact's profile:

• Notice 2 events with a balance of $20
• 1 payment as recorded by the administrator of $5.00
• Balance is now $15.00 

Settling payments to invoices

Settlement is a process of matching payments to invoices. A particular payment can be a full payment on an invoice, a partial payment, or a payment for several invoices.

Example:

• July 1st: James registers for an event,  receives invoice for $40
• August 1st: James applies for membership, receives invoice for $200

September: Check for $100 is received from James. You could just record the whole $100 as payment towards membership. Suppose your organization policy requires payments to be applied to the earliest invoice i.e. the event invoice of 40 must be paid first. In this case you would do the following:

• Record the $100 as payment on account.
• Contact balance is updated but both invoices and payment will still show open balances:

Unpaid invoices:

Available Account Balance:

Let us settle $40 of this to the event invoice:

• This pays the event invoice in full and leaves a payment balance of $60
• For current events a paid confirmed registration email is also sent at this point, see Customizing event emails (for past events, no registration confirmation email is sent)

Updated available balance:

Next go back to the payment and settle the remaining $60 to membership invoice:

This fully settles the $100 payment:

The membership invoice is now partially paid ($140 still owing) and event invoice is fully paid:

Recording Credits

Sometimes you may want to give someone a credit to be applied towards future invoices. e.g. they won some contest or you want to give them a special discount after they already paid.

In this case you would record the credit on the account just like a new payment.

• Create a custom tender e.g. 'special credits and discounts' (See Payment tenders)
• Enter the payment (credit amount) using that tender

The account would then show an overpaid available balance:

See also

• Invoices Overview
• Payments Overview
• Payment tenders
• Managing Receivables
• View account history and pay invoices