I guess this is a temporary fix, but I hope that WAVE can create a better solution.
I do video projects and the client is billed half up front and half on completion. Each project is different, so at the beginning of the project I send an estimate for the full cost of the work. Then when the estimate is approved I have to convert it to an invoice, duplicate it, and then cut the price on both invoices by half. It ends up being a little messy and I wish there was a simpler way without counting on the client to pay a different amount than what's displayed on the invoice.
Appreciate the feedback on what this looks like using quickbooks versus what it looks like in Wave. Let me just preface by saying our invoicing system is going through a major overhaul in the back end which will allow us to make some new updates. We should expect to see new advancements on Wave's invoicing feature. I can't speak to this particular example of yours and whether it will be addressed (as to be honest, we in the community support room aren't privy to this info) but we have listened to a lot of customer feedback and plan to make some new changes. Thanks again.
A customer prepaid for their purchases from me. I deposited the money in my bank. If I do a journal transaction to move the deposit into a Customer Prepaid liability then it shows my bank account lower than it is. How do I put the money into a Customer Prepaid liability so I can record payment as I invoice them for each purchase? I guess I'm not understanding the concept.
Hey @garyfehr, it sounds like, with the way that you are recording deposits, you don't need to create this particular journal transaction to record the initial deposit.
Instead, categorize the deposit transaction to the Customer Prepaid liability account. This will credit the account, and increase its balance by the amount of the deposit.
Later on, when you actually invoice the customer, you can use that same account to apply a payment to the invoice. This will debit the account, and decrease its balance.
I have a retainer agreement with a client wherein the client pays a flat monthly fee by the 10th of each month, and the contract extends six months. Is there a way to capture the monthly installments that I expect to receive but have not yet invoiced, in order to better understand my forecast?
As an example, if the contract is $1,000/month for six months then i have an invoice for January and that $1K and another $5k that's outstanding but for which I have not sent an invoice.
Hi @Carrie_W . I think your best option would to be postdate your invoices for when you plan on sending them out. When the date actually rolls around, you can manually send them out at that point. Because income is recorded when the invoice is created instead of when it's paid, you would be able to view this in your reports, allowing you to forecast future income.
HI!
I tried the steps above but so untechy
My clients pay their session fees (am a photographer) and then after session I add items they purchased.
How do I keep the invoice active but record payment for the session fee upfront?
Hey @Gunilla! In this situation, it might be better for you to have two separate invoices for your client. 1) For the session, and 2) For the items purchased afterwards. The reason I suggest that is because you can't really add items to an invoice after it's already been paid for in Wave. The alternative is that you can have all of the items listed on the invoice itself (session + products sold) and then, take payments in increments. You would create an income transaction on the Transactions page and then categorize this as a 'payment received for invoice.'
Not being able to book a deposit in an invoice directly to a liability account is a real nightmare. I have read all the Administrators' suggestions, however in real life it creates chaos and unnecessary mistakes and time waste.
Why is it so difficult to open up for adding invoice items to "Customer Prepayments and Customer Credits" accounts?
I apologize for the workaround for this. I can't necessarily tell you whether or not this is on the roadmap to something our accounting team will fix soon, however I can tell you that they are aware of this ask from our users in the community and are constantly looking to improve our free accounting services to all of our users. Thanks for the comment!
My customer makes a bank giro to my account in advance of work to be done early next year. The is therefore NO invoice drafted yet. Using the methods described many times in these pages I debit my bank account and credit the 'customer pre payment & customer credit' but without a matching invoice this throws my balance sheet out by the amount of the advance. This is not helpful as I am at year end. The only way I can find to restore my balance sheet is to raise a dummy invoice and the record a payment against the customer pre payment. This defeats the objective because it only will correct the balance sheet in the current year, as i explained my invoice will be drafted in the new year. Am i just confusing my self? can a balance sheet be unbalance at year end if I know it will balance when the dummy is edited to the final in the new year
Hey @ShawnL . No way to associate a customer to a journal transaction at the moment I'm afraid.
@Davros You'll want to ensure that the funds are reported in the year that you receive them, so putting them in the liability account is completely fine. Just make sure you select the invoice payment account as the liability account when marking the payment further down the line when you finally create that invoice.
Hi @AlexL . Yes I understand (if I'm doing it right ) that I debit my bank account and credit my liability account for later payment of the invoice BUT this transaction unbalances my Balance Statement by the amount of the advancet at this end of year. I think this is because the advance payment is physically in my bank account regardless of the transaction to put it in my liability account.
Someone earlier mentioned this.
@Jesper1 said:
Not being able to book a deposit in an invoice directly to a liability account is a real nightmare. I have read all the Administrators' suggestions, however in real life it creates chaos and unnecessary mistakes and time waste.
Why is it so difficult to open up for adding invoice items to "Customer Prepayments and Customer Credits" accounts?
I agree 100% with @Jesper1 . I'd just like to have a "Customer and Prepayments" line as an invoice option for the Income account dropdown. This would be awesome.
I would be happy to pay a small fee for Wave monthly to solve this (and several) small business accounting nightmares.
@JamieD said:
Hey @Gunilla! In this situation, it might be better for you to have two separate invoices for your client. .. The alternative is that you can have all of the items listed on the invoice itself (session + products sold) and then, take payments in increments. You would create an income transaction on the Transactions page and then categorize this as a 'payment received for invoice.'
Hi @JamieD ,
This (above) is a great workaround.
I already have my items listed - with one for Deposit/prepayment.
Can you better explain the incremental payment system "Payment received for invoice", and how to connect with a particular invoice? (This is NOT "reoccurring payments" as Wave has them set up - I made a test invoice and that doesn't work for my small deposit, usually only 10% of the balance)
@AlexL said:
Hi @Carrie_W . I think your best option would to be postdate your invoices for when you plan on sending them out. When the date actually rolls around, you can manually send them out at that point. Because income is recorded when the invoice is created instead of when it's paid, you would be able to view this in your reports, allowing you to forecast future income.
@AlexL Postdating a balance invoice: That is a really good solution. Thank you.
What @JamieD is speaking of re: incremental payments on the invoice is that you don't have to mark the invoice as paid in full! So essentially a client can make partial payments to an invoice until it is completely paid. Let's say for example you have your bank connected to your Wave and all of your business transactions are being imported. You then create an invoice for $1000 for your services to me, then I write you a check for $250. When that income appears in your transactions page from your bank statement (or manual upload) you can categorize it as a "payment received to an invoice in Wave" then select the appropriate invoice (as long as it is unpaid). This will reduce your $1000 invoice to $750 until the invoice is paid off completely. If you mark your invoice as paid from the invoices section, this will pay it off completely in one full $1000 transaction invoice payment, and show that your invoice has been paid off. Hopefully this makes sense but don't hesitate to reach out if you need further assistance.
I am new to Wave. Some of my new clients pay me an upfront 4-hour retainer. As I do work for them, I deduct my fees so there is a declining balance. I read the comments below and following the advice I created a liability account (customer prepayment) for each client in the chart of accounts. However, I am still confused how to do the following:
1) Record the upfront payment when it comes in as a liability.
2) Send updated statements to clients with their current unused balance. So far everything I've tried creates an invoice with a new balance due, which won't work. The client still has a credit with me, so what's the best way to send a balance update?
I am in the same situation as @waving2you. We manage a small condo complex and collect HOA monthly dues from the owners/pay for common expenses on behalf of the owners.
Many owners have large credit balances at any point in the year due to a prepayment or anomaly lump sum payment (they don't always pay their HOA invoices on time). We also migrated to Wave mid way thru 2019. We manually entered all historical payments going back to April 2018 when the bank accounts were first established. The Wave bank account reconciliations match the uploaded statements. However, we cannot get the individual owner accounts (prepayment/liability accounts) to reflect the true credit balance avail or monies owing. Meaning, when we go to debit an HOA expense payment from the credit balance in the prepayment account avail for a specific owner, the Wave report does not show the prepayment balance decline as expenses are deducted from the credit balance (prepayment account). How can this be fixed? We don't have future invoices to offset the credit balance. Most of the credit balances we are working with are from the past or rolled over from year to year. Now that we are in 2020, some owners have credit balances from 2019 that does not properly reflect in Wave when we do a quick report/owner level view. We have created manual paper/excel statements to properly reflect owner's actual credit or shortall. Just wish it could be in Wave so that both electronic and paper versions match.
If a workaround or solution is possible, please advise. I am hesitate to go back retroactively to April 2018 and create 'invoices' in wave just so the credit balances in the respective prepayment accounts can be deducted over time.
Hi there,
I just use Wave for our after-school institution. For now, I'm still figuring out how to process payment for a recurring invoice. Any help would be very appreciated.
Our institution charges monthly tuition fee to the students. Recurring invoice helps us tracking late payment. However, some students might pay the invoice earlier. For instance, one invoice is due on the 10th of February, but the student pay it on the 5th. Could you please help me how to record early payment like that?
Many thanks for your support!
Hi there...
I created the account under "Customer Prepayments and Customer Credits" like explained on step 2, however it wont show on the drop down when I want to allocate the payment on step 3. Please advise
I'm in the same boat as @Gunilla I am a Makeup Artist, and my clients pay a $50 deposit to book me, then pay the remaining balance a month before their event. So I do 2 accounting steps regularly: accept a deposit, and get the final payment a few months later. Is there any way to create a "retainer invoice" that then rolls over into their final invoice? I want to send receipts for all payments and have all payments show up on their final invoice.
thanks
Hi @waving2you .
1. If you add an income transaction in your Transactions page and categorize it to the Liability Customer PRe-Payment account, this will record the balance existing in that account. Then, when your customer pays and you have marked their payment as paid, you can select the same account as your payment account which will reduce the credit in it.
2. I'm afraid there's no way to actually show this statement without printing or saving something like the Balance Sheet Report with the account listed as Customer Statements works off of invoice balances that are owed.
@HOAtracker The information which I have supplied to @waving2you above should also help you in your situation.
Hi @RumbaGirimaya , I'm not sure I'm understanding the question correctly but I'll try to answer it for you. You can record a payment on an invoice at any given time, even if it's received early. All you have to do is go into the invoice and click Record payment. Let me know if I'm missing something here?
Hi @Rezinate , can you take a picture of the account in your Chart of Accounts and post it here so I can see exactly where it's located?
Hey @Lindsay_MakeupArtist , I'm afraid there is no way to create a retainer invoice which rolls over. You can create one invoice with the total amount, and clearly detail in the Notes section what is due and when, but this is definitely a workaround for what you're looking for.
You call this (un) helpful page "How to handle invoice deposits or pre-payments" but you don't actually talk about either.
Why don't you just admit that Wave does not handle deposits or prepayments?
The whole point of a deposit is that IT IS NOT INCOME, it's a liability. Wave does not allow any transaction to record until a an Invoice is created which then posts it as INCOME.
It's more than a little confusing!
HI
Thanks for all these comments - I am also stuck - I have customers who prepay me for testing.
I want to be able to keep track of (1) the prepayment and (2) the balance available as the customer submits samples for testing.
Whatever I am doing the 'Customer Prepayments and Customer Credits' account is not working for me.
Do I need to use a spreadsheet to keep track of the tests done or can wave do it for me?
Comments
I guess this is a temporary fix, but I hope that WAVE can create a better solution.
I do video projects and the client is billed half up front and half on completion. Each project is different, so at the beginning of the project I send an estimate for the full cost of the work. Then when the estimate is approved I have to convert it to an invoice, duplicate it, and then cut the price on both invoices by half. It ends up being a little messy and I wish there was a simpler way without counting on the client to pay a different amount than what's displayed on the invoice.
Hey there, @ddewolfe
Appreciate the feedback on what this looks like using quickbooks versus what it looks like in Wave. Let me just preface by saying our invoicing system is going through a major overhaul in the back end which will allow us to make some new updates. We should expect to see new advancements on Wave's invoicing feature. I can't speak to this particular example of yours and whether it will be addressed (as to be honest, we in the community support room aren't privy to this info) but we have listened to a lot of customer feedback and plan to make some new changes. Thanks again.
A customer prepaid for their purchases from me. I deposited the money in my bank. If I do a journal transaction to move the deposit into a Customer Prepaid liability then it shows my bank account lower than it is. How do I put the money into a Customer Prepaid liability so I can record payment as I invoice them for each purchase? I guess I'm not understanding the concept.
Hey @garyfehr, it sounds like, with the way that you are recording deposits, you don't need to create this particular journal transaction to record the initial deposit.
Instead, categorize the deposit transaction to the Customer Prepaid liability account. This will credit the account, and increase its balance by the amount of the deposit.
Later on, when you actually invoice the customer, you can use that same account to apply a payment to the invoice. This will debit the account, and decrease its balance.
I have a retainer agreement with a client wherein the client pays a flat monthly fee by the 10th of each month, and the contract extends six months. Is there a way to capture the monthly installments that I expect to receive but have not yet invoiced, in order to better understand my forecast?
As an example, if the contract is $1,000/month for six months then i have an invoice for January and that $1K and another $5k that's outstanding but for which I have not sent an invoice.
Hi @Carrie_W . I think your best option would to be postdate your invoices for when you plan on sending them out. When the date actually rolls around, you can manually send them out at that point. Because income is recorded when the invoice is created instead of when it's paid, you would be able to view this in your reports, allowing you to forecast future income.
Thanks @alexlewiszarkos ! I actually just figured this out on my own yesterday and it seems to be working well.
@Carrie_W Glad to hear it
HI!
I tried the steps above but so untechy
My clients pay their session fees (am a photographer) and then after session I add items they purchased.
How do I keep the invoice active but record payment for the session fee upfront?
Thanks for your help
Gunilla
Hey @Gunilla! In this situation, it might be better for you to have two separate invoices for your client. 1) For the session, and 2) For the items purchased afterwards. The reason I suggest that is because you can't really add items to an invoice after it's already been paid for in Wave. The alternative is that you can have all of the items listed on the invoice itself (session + products sold) and then, take payments in increments. You would create an income transaction on the Transactions page and then categorize this as a 'payment received for invoice.'
Hi and thanks
I need the invoices to contain all the information
I somehow fixed it so it works for me
Thanks for your help!
Not being able to book a deposit in an invoice directly to a liability account is a real nightmare. I have read all the Administrators' suggestions, however in real life it creates chaos and unnecessary mistakes and time waste.
Why is it so difficult to open up for adding invoice items to "Customer Prepayments and Customer Credits" accounts?
Hey @Jesper1
I apologize for the workaround for this. I can't necessarily tell you whether or not this is on the roadmap to something our accounting team will fix soon, however I can tell you that they are aware of this ask from our users in the community and are constantly looking to improve our free accounting services to all of our users. Thanks for the comment!
Anyway I can add a customer to a journal entry? When I do as instructed, the journal entry can't be reflected in customer report.
My customer makes a bank giro to my account in advance of work to be done early next year. The is therefore NO invoice drafted yet. Using the methods described many times in these pages I debit my bank account and credit the 'customer pre payment & customer credit' but without a matching invoice this throws my balance sheet out by the amount of the advance. This is not helpful as I am at year end. The only way I can find to restore my balance sheet is to raise a dummy invoice and the record a payment against the customer pre payment. This defeats the objective because it only will correct the balance sheet in the current year, as i explained my invoice will be drafted in the new year. Am i just confusing my self? can a balance sheet be unbalance at year end if I know it will balance when the dummy is edited to the final in the new year
Hey @ShawnL . No way to associate a customer to a journal transaction at the moment I'm afraid.
@Davros You'll want to ensure that the funds are reported in the year that you receive them, so putting them in the liability account is completely fine. Just make sure you select the invoice payment account as the liability account when marking the payment further down the line when you finally create that invoice.
Hi @AlexL . Yes I understand (if I'm doing it right ) that I debit my bank account and credit my liability account for later payment of the invoice BUT this transaction unbalances my Balance Statement by the amount of the advancet at this end of year. I think this is because the advance payment is physically in my bank account regardless of the transaction to put it in my liability account.
Someone earlier mentioned this.
@AlexL ,
I agree 100% with @Jesper1 . I'd just like to have a "Customer and Prepayments" line as an invoice option for the Income account dropdown. This would be awesome.
I would be happy to pay a small fee for Wave monthly to solve this (and several) small business accounting nightmares.
Hi @JamieD ,
This (above) is a great workaround.
I already have my items listed - with one for Deposit/prepayment.
Can you better explain the incremental payment system "Payment received for invoice", and how to connect with a particular invoice? (This is NOT "reoccurring payments" as Wave has them set up - I made a test invoice and that doesn't work for my small deposit, usually only 10% of the balance)
@AlexL
Postdating a balance invoice: That is a really good solution. Thank you.
Hey there @LaurenM
What @JamieD is speaking of re: incremental payments on the invoice is that you don't have to mark the invoice as paid in full! So essentially a client can make partial payments to an invoice until it is completely paid. Let's say for example you have your bank connected to your Wave and all of your business transactions are being imported. You then create an invoice for $1000 for your services to me, then I write you a check for $250. When that income appears in your transactions page from your bank statement (or manual upload) you can categorize it as a "payment received to an invoice in Wave" then select the appropriate invoice (as long as it is unpaid). This will reduce your $1000 invoice to $750 until the invoice is paid off completely. If you mark your invoice as paid from the invoices section, this will pay it off completely in one full $1000 transaction invoice payment, and show that your invoice has been paid off. Hopefully this makes sense but don't hesitate to reach out if you need further assistance.
I am new to Wave. Some of my new clients pay me an upfront 4-hour retainer. As I do work for them, I deduct my fees so there is a declining balance. I read the comments below and following the advice I created a liability account (customer prepayment) for each client in the chart of accounts. However, I am still confused how to do the following:
1) Record the upfront payment when it comes in as a liability.
2) Send updated statements to clients with their current unused balance. So far everything I've tried creates an invoice with a new balance due, which won't work. The client still has a credit with me, so what's the best way to send a balance update?
I am in the same situation as @waving2you. We manage a small condo complex and collect HOA monthly dues from the owners/pay for common expenses on behalf of the owners.
Many owners have large credit balances at any point in the year due to a prepayment or anomaly lump sum payment (they don't always pay their HOA invoices on time). We also migrated to Wave mid way thru 2019. We manually entered all historical payments going back to April 2018 when the bank accounts were first established. The Wave bank account reconciliations match the uploaded statements. However, we cannot get the individual owner accounts (prepayment/liability accounts) to reflect the true credit balance avail or monies owing. Meaning, when we go to debit an HOA expense payment from the credit balance in the prepayment account avail for a specific owner, the Wave report does not show the prepayment balance decline as expenses are deducted from the credit balance (prepayment account). How can this be fixed? We don't have future invoices to offset the credit balance. Most of the credit balances we are working with are from the past or rolled over from year to year. Now that we are in 2020, some owners have credit balances from 2019 that does not properly reflect in Wave when we do a quick report/owner level view. We have created manual paper/excel statements to properly reflect owner's actual credit or shortall. Just wish it could be in Wave so that both electronic and paper versions match.
If a workaround or solution is possible, please advise. I am hesitate to go back retroactively to April 2018 and create 'invoices' in wave just so the credit balances in the respective prepayment accounts can be deducted over time.
Hi there,
I just use Wave for our after-school institution. For now, I'm still figuring out how to process payment for a recurring invoice. Any help would be very appreciated.
Our institution charges monthly tuition fee to the students. Recurring invoice helps us tracking late payment. However, some students might pay the invoice earlier. For instance, one invoice is due on the 10th of February, but the student pay it on the 5th. Could you please help me how to record early payment like that?
Many thanks for your support!
Hi there...
I created the account under "Customer Prepayments and Customer Credits" like explained on step 2, however it wont show on the drop down when I want to allocate the payment on step 3. Please advise
I'm in the same boat as @Gunilla I am a Makeup Artist, and my clients pay a $50 deposit to book me, then pay the remaining balance a month before their event. So I do 2 accounting steps regularly: accept a deposit, and get the final payment a few months later. Is there any way to create a "retainer invoice" that then rolls over into their final invoice? I want to send receipts for all payments and have all payments show up on their final invoice.
thanks
Hi @waving2you .
1. If you add an income transaction in your Transactions page and categorize it to the Liability Customer PRe-Payment account, this will record the balance existing in that account. Then, when your customer pays and you have marked their payment as paid, you can select the same account as your payment account which will reduce the credit in it.
2. I'm afraid there's no way to actually show this statement without printing or saving something like the Balance Sheet Report with the account listed as Customer Statements works off of invoice balances that are owed.
@HOAtracker The information which I have supplied to @waving2you above should also help you in your situation.
Hi @RumbaGirimaya , I'm not sure I'm understanding the question correctly but I'll try to answer it for you. You can record a payment on an invoice at any given time, even if it's received early. All you have to do is go into the invoice and click Record payment. Let me know if I'm missing something here?
Hi @Rezinate , can you take a picture of the account in your Chart of Accounts and post it here so I can see exactly where it's located?
Hey @Lindsay_MakeupArtist , I'm afraid there is no way to create a retainer invoice which rolls over. You can create one invoice with the total amount, and clearly detail in the Notes section what is due and when, but this is definitely a workaround for what you're looking for.
You call this (un) helpful page "How to handle invoice deposits or pre-payments" but you don't actually talk about either.
Why don't you just admit that Wave does not handle deposits or prepayments?
The whole point of a deposit is that IT IS NOT INCOME, it's a liability. Wave does not allow any transaction to record until a an Invoice is created which then posts it as INCOME.
It's more than a little confusing!
Hi @AlexL,
Thanks for your response. Here are the images you requested:
Chart of accounts:
Won't show in the Payment Recording of the Invoice:
Thanks for your help!
HI
Thanks for all these comments - I am also stuck - I have customers who prepay me for testing.
I want to be able to keep track of (1) the prepayment and (2) the balance available as the customer submits samples for testing.
Whatever I am doing the 'Customer Prepayments and Customer Credits' account is not working for me.
Do I need to use a spreadsheet to keep track of the tests done or can wave do it for me?