Hey there @AmyO ! If you are looking to create "Treatment Package" liability accounts and have subcategories per customer to track their individual balances, I'm afraid that this functionality is not supported by Wave.
Hey @RebeccaL ! When you mark the invoice as paid using the newly created pre-payment liability account the transaction that generates on the Accounting > Transactions page should have the pre-payment liability account selected as the account. If so, the pre-payment was recorded successfully on your invoice. If not, can you clarify the account that is selected for the invoice payment transaction?
Hello @Beryl ! If a client has a "positive balance" remaining in Wave from a previous overpayment for instance, the additional funds won't be automatically allocated to a different invoice. If you have an overdue invoice, you will need to allocate the previous overpayment to the new overdue invoice manually. Here is a Help Center article with more information.
Hey @JamieElg ! Wave does allow you to record multiple deposits. When you manually record a payment, you can select the specific payment method, account, and amount. You can do this multiple times until the invoice is fully paid. If you record multiple partial payments like this, it will be broken down on the invoice when you view it. This applies to pre-payments and regular payments.
Hello, can you please advise with the Partial Payment option, can the customer pay via Credit Card? Or will Stripe only allow full-payment of invoice? Explained again, can a customer use pay a pre-payment/deposit for an invoice using a credit card/Stripe? Then later on the remaining balance be paid either via credit card again or bank transfer? Thank you!
How do I apply a payment to a recurring invoice? (Client overpaid in another system before I switched them to recurring payments Wave, so I need to apply that payment to the next 2 invoices.)
Hey there @Missy ! That's right, your customer can definitely make a partial payment this way and pay the remaining invoice balance at a later date. Since Stripe is your payment processor, your customer can make a partial payment on the invoice be entering the desired amount they wish to pay. However, if they want to pay the remaining balance online through the invoice, they will need to make the payment via credit card since Stripe does not support any other payment methods. Albeit you can accept the remaining payment outside of Wave as well and record the second payment manually to mark the invoice as "Paid".
Hello @MindfullSolutions ! If your client overpaid you in a different system, then you will need the initial payment + overpayment recorded in Wave and account for the overpayment appropriately so the funds can be allocated to a different invoice. To do this, I suggest following the steps under the "My client overpaid me with cash, cheque, or online outside of Wave" section of this Help Center article.
@JulianP I'm still not seeing how to handle this for a RECURRING invoice. It's an auto pay client. I've created the liability account, but can't figure out how to credit the next recurring invoice. The payment is drawn as soon as the invoice is created.
This recording of deposits doesn't work, when I issue an invoice and get paid via bank transfer from a customer, I cannot just simply record it manually to the liability account created under "Customer Pre-payments and Customer Credits account", this is because i will not get the correct balance in the bank account which my customer has already transferred the deposit to. How do i mitigate this?
Somehow when I select the Customer Pre-payments and Customer Credits account from where the next invoice must be paid from, the balance of that customer Pre-payments and Customer Credits account INCREASES instead of decreasing..
Hi @MindfullSolutions , unfortunately you'll have to create a one-off invoice in this situation. Create an invoice in which you credit the amount, and then send it to your customer to finish the remainder of the payment. When this is all settled you can return to having them pay through auto-payments.
Hey @ZenithYC , can you breakdown what exactly your workflow is for receiving money? I'm not fully understanding your situation.
Hi @Antony , because a liability account is money owed, this amount increase instead of decreasing. When it's paid off, it will reduce.
I was able to do steps 1, 2, and 3 in this article. What I don't know how to do is to get my customer's prepayments attached to the prepayment account (so I can then track the remaining prepaid amount). My customer has made two prepayments. She made these prepayments by paying invoices I sent her. How do I get them to show up in the prepayment liability account?
Thanks for reaching out to our community and I do sincerely apologize about the delay in responding as we are currently seeing a larger than normal volume.
Have you added that invoice prepayment line item to your paid invoices?
Navigate to the overpaid invoice and edit it to add the newly created "Invoice Overpayment" product as an item on this invoice.
So if your client made a payment on an invoice using a credit card you should be able to add a new item to that paid invoice to the pre payment account you created in step two for the remaining amount of the deposit. This will create a balance for that account which can be applied to your next invoice.
To apply the payment to a new invoice, create the invoice as normal, then add the newly created "Invoice Overpayment" product as an item on this invoice. Make the price of this product -$XXXX amount of dollars for the remaining balance before saving and sending the new invoice to your client.
The negative value will reduce the amount and balance the account.
I have a customer that requires a partial invoice to be sent to pay an upfront deposit. The invoice needs to have the same invoice number. Just showing a partial bill. It doesn’t matter what the notes say. The invoice amount needs to show a partial invoice amount. Let’s say 50%. Is there anyway of creating this in Wave? Also, will you be adding projects in the future? This way we can track individual projects like other accounting softwares do?
Hey @AlonsoGomez , what do you mean when you say a partial invoice? If I'm understanding correctly, you can send an invoice to your customer and have them only pay part of it. Because your invoice in Wave can be marked as partially paid at any point, it can be used to track deposits on the invoice.
If I'm not fully understanding your question please feel free to clarify.
In regards to project based accounting, this isn't something that we have plans to add in the near future I'm afraid.
I a, not sure if I am missing a step here. I want to send out a retainer request similiar to an invoice, then pay the invoices with the sitting deposit. I may need to increase the deposit if the retainer deposit drops to a certain point.
I am not seeing the method of sending them the "retainer bill" so to speak.
Hey @CBennett , the steps outlined in this article would be the best way to handle your situation despite not being exactly what you're looking for. We don't have a way to send a specific retainer bill, as the original invoice would serve as the notifier to your customer on what is owed (which can be outlined in the Notes section specifically).
there is no original invoice. Detective work is about waiting and watching. We bill while we gather information. I just dont see a way to properly utilize your system for this situation of ours.
I need to invoice a customer the full project costs. They are to pay 50% up front, 30% 4 weeks later and the final 20% once the project goes live (approx 2 weeks later). I need the Invoice # to remain the same and show each time they are sent the invoice that their payments are recorded ie: Project Costs is $5,000 - Payment of 50% $2,500 now due. Then another Invoice stating Project Costs $5,000 with 50% deposit received - Balance Owing $2,500 - Payment of 30% $1,500 is now due - remaining balance on project is $1,000. Then I need to send a final invoice that shows Project Costs 5,000 - $4,000 in project deposits paid - $1,000 final balance is now due and payable. How do I do that?
Thank goodness I tried this on myself before trying it with clients... I paid part of the invoice and did the steps listed above, but now the accounts look balanced even though only 50% was paid. Even the customer statements say it's balanced when it's not. I have to dig to look at the detailed Liabilities to see that it's actually not totally balanced...
Am I gonna have to send 2 separate invoices and therefore get charged twice for merchant fees? Cuz that's major bullshit.
You claim to be user-friendly, and deposits / booking fees / prepayments are a critical part of many businesses, so please please please fix this as soon as possible. You say this isn't on the agenda for Wave's near future, but if so many people are asking for it then it would only benefit your company to listen and take action to improve this matter.
I'm afraid that Wave does not support this specific method of invoicing. The best method to track this in Wave that I can think of is by sending your customer a regular invoice, recording a prepayment/deposit using the workflow in this Help Center article and applying it to the invoice, then your customer can make partial payments towards the remaining invoice balance on the dates you agree too. If you'd like, you can include these details into the "Notes" section of the invoice so both you and your customer can view them.
Do you mind clarifying how you recorded your prepayment/deposit? When you recorded the pre-payment against an invoice, did you head over to Sales > Invoices and select Record a payment next to your customer's invoice? Also, for the Payment method, did you choose "Other", and for the Payment account, did you select the liability account you had to create to record this? By doing so, it will reduce the pre-payment account balance.
This solution is clunky, please just add the ability to take deposits. We need to bill the full amount and request 50% upfront. It's so simply and so common and yet the Wave team has us doing mental gymnastics with a work around. Just listen to your users and add this feature, it's been requested FOR YEARS to hear you have no plans to add it ridiculous.
@AlexL said:
Hi @MindfullSolutions , unfortunately you'll have to create a one-off invoice in this situation. Create an invoice in which you credit the amount, and then send it to your customer to finish the remainder of the payment. When this is all settled you can return to having them pay through auto-payments.
Hey @ZenithYC , can you breakdown what exactly your workflow is for receiving money? I'm not fully understanding your situation.
Hi @Antony , because a liability account is money owed, this amount increase instead of decreasing. When it's paid off, it will reduce.
Hi ALex,
I'm I right to say when u create an invoice to receive money, you can only choose one location the money is going to, on the payments portion? Hence, if i choose the deposits account under liabilities, it will not be transferred to the actual bank account that the money was sent to? Therefore, i will be stuck with a situation whereby my bank account has $1100, but on my accounts, it will only have $1000.
How do I mitigate this? In my industry, for yacht charters, we often issue invoices before the work is actually being done. Therefore we typically have a bunch of deposits in our bank account that isn't realized revenue yet. Is there a way to have both the customer deposits account increase as well as the bank account balance increase? And is this actually correct, or am i supposed to have the accounting bank account balance to be lower than the actual bank account balance, when there is customer deposits.
@AlexL I have the same question as @ZenithYC .
I need to account for physical check I deposited into my bank account for the deposit from my customer. Wave pulled in the transaction from Automatic Import, and I don't know what to do with it. When I manually enter a payment on the Invoice on the Invoice page using the Deposits/Prepayments Account towards that invoice, it creates a new Transaction in the Transaction page, and now I have two transactions - the one from my bank account, and the one from the invoice. What do I do to reconcile that it looks like I got the deposit twice?
Hi @ZenithYC , the idea is that you've received the money for the deposit not through an invoice, but elsewhere. It seems the article was a little bit vague in this respect so I've added an additional step to clarify. Step 3 of the article refers to the income transaction that you would have in your Transactions page representing the deposit. Because this would be assigned to the bank account, you can categorize it to the appropriate pre-payment account. This way, when you apply it to your invoice later on, it will still have the necessary bank account associated to it.
Hi @yurtdwller , as mentioned in my comment above, I added a clarifying step as it seems like the article wasn't clear enough. You can categorize that deposit directly to the new account which should get you all straightened out.
Hi. I too am trying to sort out how I isssue an invoice for which we have already received 50% as a down payment. This same invoice format will apply to 14 different locations, individually invoiced, even though we received the downpayment as one big payment (50% x 14 locations). Now trying to bill each location the balance and stumbling......please help, if possible
From what I understand, the best way to go about this in Wave is by creating the appropriate "Liabilities & Credit Cards" account for the down-payments you receive from all customers or per customer. Then, you can categorize the 50% down-payment deposit to your new "Liabilities & Credit Cards" account. Then when you'd like to include this downpayment towards an invoice, or multiple invoices for that matter, you can select the "Liabilities & Credit Cards" account, which in turn, would lower the balance of the account as well.
With that being said, since we here at Wave support are not Accountants, I would highly recommend reaching out to a registered CPA to ensure that you don't get incorrect advice on how to do your accounting.
To clarify, is the account selected for the payment method a "Liabilities and Credit Cards" account as outlined in the earlier steps? If not, you'll need to create one to ensure the balance in the account clears when using it when recoding a payment.
This gets me most of the way there. But I sell punch-passes for my services and am sending invoices with a product created in my product list. When I create the product, it does not allow me to charge against a liability account (the prepaid/customer credit account), it only allows an income account. Do you have a recommendation for that?
Hey @Tisha , we don't have any plans to add liability accounts to a product/service for automated tracking. You can always journal amounts over to another account if need be, but we plan on keeping income accounts as the only account for selection at least for the near future.
Just want to chime in and +1 the request for partial invoice capabilities. In my case, I need to be able to create, for example, one $12,000 invoice to cover a full year of services, then send monthly invoices for $1000 (and only $1000 - not $12,000 but allow for smaller payments) each. This is possible with recurring invoices, but it would be nice to be able to track that total back against the $12,000 owed so that I know when payments are actually completed.
Ideally the full invoice ($12,000 for example) could also be made up of many line items for multiple services, and then each monthly "payment" invoice of $1000 would get automatically divided up and applied proportionally across the original line items.
We really need the invoice-to-liability feature.
In my situation my company charges customers for service and I also pay government fee on behalf of customers.
In the invoice, I have to list all payments they pay us including the fee we will pay on behalf of them.
Without invoice-to-liability feature, all payment received from an invoice has to be categorized as income and reflect on the earning report. I have to manually less those government fee to know how much I really make.
e.g.,
I charge $1000 for service, and pay $2000 government fee on behalf of customer.
In the invoice the customer see $1000 (service charge) and $2000(Customer disbursement) as this is the total cost to them.
By putting these two payment in an invoice, it will appear I earn $3000, and spend $2000 as expense. What we really earn is $1000.
Comments
Hey there @AmyO ! If you are looking to create "Treatment Package" liability accounts and have subcategories per customer to track their individual balances, I'm afraid that this functionality is not supported by Wave.
Hey @RebeccaL ! When you mark the invoice as paid using the newly created pre-payment liability account the transaction that generates on the Accounting > Transactions page should have the pre-payment liability account selected as the account. If so, the pre-payment was recorded successfully on your invoice. If not, can you clarify the account that is selected for the invoice payment transaction?
Hello @Beryl ! If a client has a "positive balance" remaining in Wave from a previous overpayment for instance, the additional funds won't be automatically allocated to a different invoice. If you have an overdue invoice, you will need to allocate the previous overpayment to the new overdue invoice manually. Here is a Help Center article with more information.
Hey @JamieElg ! Wave does allow you to record multiple deposits. When you manually record a payment, you can select the specific payment method, account, and amount. You can do this multiple times until the invoice is fully paid. If you record multiple partial payments like this, it will be broken down on the invoice when you view it. This applies to pre-payments and regular payments.
Hello, can you please advise with the Partial Payment option, can the customer pay via Credit Card? Or will Stripe only allow full-payment of invoice? Explained again, can a customer use pay a pre-payment/deposit for an invoice using a credit card/Stripe? Then later on the remaining balance be paid either via credit card again or bank transfer? Thank you!
How do I apply a payment to a recurring invoice? (Client overpaid in another system before I switched them to recurring payments Wave, so I need to apply that payment to the next 2 invoices.)
Hey there @Missy ! That's right, your customer can definitely make a partial payment this way and pay the remaining invoice balance at a later date. Since Stripe is your payment processor, your customer can make a partial payment on the invoice be entering the desired amount they wish to pay. However, if they want to pay the remaining balance online through the invoice, they will need to make the payment via credit card since Stripe does not support any other payment methods. Albeit you can accept the remaining payment outside of Wave as well and record the second payment manually to mark the invoice as "Paid".
Hello @MindfullSolutions ! If your client overpaid you in a different system, then you will need the initial payment + overpayment recorded in Wave and account for the overpayment appropriately so the funds can be allocated to a different invoice. To do this, I suggest following the steps under the "My client overpaid me with cash, cheque, or online outside of Wave" section of this Help Center article.
@JulianP I'm still not seeing how to handle this for a RECURRING invoice. It's an auto pay client. I've created the liability account, but can't figure out how to credit the next recurring invoice. The payment is drawn as soon as the invoice is created.
This recording of deposits doesn't work, when I issue an invoice and get paid via bank transfer from a customer, I cannot just simply record it manually to the liability account created under "Customer Pre-payments and Customer Credits account", this is because i will not get the correct balance in the bank account which my customer has already transferred the deposit to. How do i mitigate this?
Somehow when I select the Customer Pre-payments and Customer Credits account from where the next invoice must be paid from, the balance of that customer Pre-payments and Customer Credits account INCREASES instead of decreasing..
Hi @MindfullSolutions , unfortunately you'll have to create a one-off invoice in this situation. Create an invoice in which you credit the amount, and then send it to your customer to finish the remainder of the payment. When this is all settled you can return to having them pay through auto-payments.
Hey @ZenithYC , can you breakdown what exactly your workflow is for receiving money? I'm not fully understanding your situation.
Hi @Antony , because a liability account is money owed, this amount increase instead of decreasing. When it's paid off, it will reduce.
I was able to do steps 1, 2, and 3 in this article. What I don't know how to do is to get my customer's prepayments attached to the prepayment account (so I can then track the remaining prepaid amount). My customer has made two prepayments. She made these prepayments by paying invoices I sent her. How do I get them to show up in the prepayment liability account?
Hey there @k_vacek0
Thanks for reaching out to our community and I do sincerely apologize about the delay in responding as we are currently seeing a larger than normal volume.
Have you added that invoice prepayment line item to your paid invoices?
So if your client made a payment on an invoice using a credit card you should be able to add a new item to that paid invoice to the pre payment account you created in step two for the remaining amount of the deposit. This will create a balance for that account which can be applied to your next invoice.
The negative value will reduce the amount and balance the account.
Hey @AlonsoGomez , what do you mean when you say a partial invoice? If I'm understanding correctly, you can send an invoice to your customer and have them only pay part of it. Because your invoice in Wave can be marked as partially paid at any point, it can be used to track deposits on the invoice.
If I'm not fully understanding your question please feel free to clarify.
In regards to project based accounting, this isn't something that we have plans to add in the near future I'm afraid.
I a, not sure if I am missing a step here. I want to send out a retainer request similiar to an invoice, then pay the invoices with the sitting deposit. I may need to increase the deposit if the retainer deposit drops to a certain point.
I am not seeing the method of sending them the "retainer bill" so to speak.
Hey @CBennett , the steps outlined in this article would be the best way to handle your situation despite not being exactly what you're looking for. We don't have a way to send a specific retainer bill, as the original invoice would serve as the notifier to your customer on what is owed (which can be outlined in the Notes section specifically).
there is no original invoice. Detective work is about waiting and watching. We bill while we gather information. I just dont see a way to properly utilize your system for this situation of ours.
I need to invoice a customer the full project costs. They are to pay 50% up front, 30% 4 weeks later and the final 20% once the project goes live (approx 2 weeks later). I need the Invoice # to remain the same and show each time they are sent the invoice that their payments are recorded ie: Project Costs is $5,000 - Payment of 50% $2,500 now due. Then another Invoice stating Project Costs $5,000 with 50% deposit received - Balance Owing $2,500 - Payment of 30% $1,500 is now due - remaining balance on project is $1,000. Then I need to send a final invoice that shows Project Costs 5,000 - $4,000 in project deposits paid - $1,000 final balance is now due and payable. How do I do that?
Thank goodness I tried this on myself before trying it with clients... I paid part of the invoice and did the steps listed above, but now the accounts look balanced even though only 50% was paid. Even the customer statements say it's balanced when it's not. I have to dig to look at the detailed Liabilities to see that it's actually not totally balanced...
Am I gonna have to send 2 separate invoices and therefore get charged twice for merchant fees? Cuz that's major bullshit.
You claim to be user-friendly, and deposits / booking fees / prepayments are a critical part of many businesses, so please please please fix this as soon as possible. You say this isn't on the agenda for Wave's near future, but if so many people are asking for it then it would only benefit your company to listen and take action to improve this matter.
Hey @kal_zps !
I'm afraid that Wave does not support this specific method of invoicing. The best method to track this in Wave that I can think of is by sending your customer a regular invoice, recording a prepayment/deposit using the workflow in this Help Center article and applying it to the invoice, then your customer can make partial payments towards the remaining invoice balance on the dates you agree too. If you'd like, you can include these details into the "Notes" section of the invoice so both you and your customer can view them.
Hello @AnnaReb !
Do you mind clarifying how you recorded your prepayment/deposit? When you recorded the pre-payment against an invoice, did you head over to Sales > Invoices and select Record a payment next to your customer's invoice? Also, for the Payment method, did you choose "Other", and for the Payment account, did you select the liability account you had to create to record this? By doing so, it will reduce the pre-payment account balance.
This solution is clunky, please just add the ability to take deposits. We need to bill the full amount and request 50% upfront. It's so simply and so common and yet the Wave team has us doing mental gymnastics with a work around. Just listen to your users and add this feature, it's been requested FOR YEARS to hear you have no plans to add it ridiculous.
Hi ALex,
I'm I right to say when u create an invoice to receive money, you can only choose one location the money is going to, on the payments portion? Hence, if i choose the deposits account under liabilities, it will not be transferred to the actual bank account that the money was sent to? Therefore, i will be stuck with a situation whereby my bank account has $1100, but on my accounts, it will only have $1000.
How do I mitigate this? In my industry, for yacht charters, we often issue invoices before the work is actually being done. Therefore we typically have a bunch of deposits in our bank account that isn't realized revenue yet. Is there a way to have both the customer deposits account increase as well as the bank account balance increase? And is this actually correct, or am i supposed to have the accounting bank account balance to be lower than the actual bank account balance, when there is customer deposits.
@AlexL I have the same question as @ZenithYC .
I need to account for physical check I deposited into my bank account for the deposit from my customer. Wave pulled in the transaction from Automatic Import, and I don't know what to do with it. When I manually enter a payment on the Invoice on the Invoice page using the Deposits/Prepayments Account towards that invoice, it creates a new Transaction in the Transaction page, and now I have two transactions - the one from my bank account, and the one from the invoice. What do I do to reconcile that it looks like I got the deposit twice?
Hi @ZenithYC , the idea is that you've received the money for the deposit not through an invoice, but elsewhere. It seems the article was a little bit vague in this respect so I've added an additional step to clarify. Step 3 of the article refers to the income transaction that you would have in your Transactions page representing the deposit. Because this would be assigned to the bank account, you can categorize it to the appropriate pre-payment account. This way, when you apply it to your invoice later on, it will still have the necessary bank account associated to it.
Hi @yurtdwller , as mentioned in my comment above, I added a clarifying step as it seems like the article wasn't clear enough. You can categorize that deposit directly to the new account which should get you all straightened out.
Hi. I too am trying to sort out how I isssue an invoice for which we have already received 50% as a down payment. This same invoice format will apply to 14 different locations, individually invoiced, even though we received the downpayment as one big payment (50% x 14 locations). Now trying to bill each location the balance and stumbling......please help, if possible
Step 4: above last sentence states: This method allows you to reduce the pre-payment account as you clear your receivables.
However, recording the payment as directed adds the amount in the "Customer Prepayments" account, not decreases the amount as it is supposed to. Help!
I was pointed to this page as a way to add credits to a customers account. We need that feature.
Original post here: https://community.waveapps.com/discussion/6418/crediting-a-customer
Hello @KarlaCanada !
From what I understand, the best way to go about this in Wave is by creating the appropriate "Liabilities & Credit Cards" account for the down-payments you receive from all customers or per customer. Then, you can categorize the 50% down-payment deposit to your new "Liabilities & Credit Cards" account. Then when you'd like to include this downpayment towards an invoice, or multiple invoices for that matter, you can select the "Liabilities & Credit Cards" account, which in turn, would lower the balance of the account as well.
With that being said, since we here at Wave support are not Accountants, I would highly recommend reaching out to a registered CPA to ensure that you don't get incorrect advice on how to do your accounting.
Hey there @BruceAbr !
To clarify, is the account selected for the payment method a "Liabilities and Credit Cards" account as outlined in the earlier steps? If not, you'll need to create one to ensure the balance in the account clears when using it when recoding a payment.
This gets me most of the way there. But I sell punch-passes for my services and am sending invoices with a product created in my product list. When I create the product, it does not allow me to charge against a liability account (the prepaid/customer credit account), it only allows an income account. Do you have a recommendation for that?
Edit: I found this post https://community.waveapps.com/discussion/3762/invoice-to-liability-account
So my question is changing to "do you know if this is on the roadmap?" I know there might be some issue to implementing it that is above my paygrade.
Hey @Tisha , we don't have any plans to add liability accounts to a product/service for automated tracking. You can always journal amounts over to another account if need be, but we plan on keeping income accounts as the only account for selection at least for the near future.
Just want to chime in and +1 the request for partial invoice capabilities. In my case, I need to be able to create, for example, one $12,000 invoice to cover a full year of services, then send monthly invoices for $1000 (and only $1000 - not $12,000 but allow for smaller payments) each. This is possible with recurring invoices, but it would be nice to be able to track that total back against the $12,000 owed so that I know when payments are actually completed.
Ideally the full invoice ($12,000 for example) could also be made up of many line items for multiple services, and then each monthly "payment" invoice of $1000 would get automatically divided up and applied proportionally across the original line items.
We really need the invoice-to-liability feature.
In my situation my company charges customers for service and I also pay government fee on behalf of customers.
In the invoice, I have to list all payments they pay us including the fee we will pay on behalf of them.
Without invoice-to-liability feature, all payment received from an invoice has to be categorized as income and reflect on the earning report. I have to manually less those government fee to know how much I really make.
e.g.,
I charge $1000 for service, and pay $2000 government fee on behalf of customer.
In the invoice the customer see $1000 (service charge) and $2000(Customer disbursement) as this is the total cost to them.
By putting these two payment in an invoice, it will appear I earn $3000, and spend $2000 as expense. What we really earn is $1000.