Introduction
From the main menu open Financials, then click the Outstanding balances tile. The screen is headed Customer outstanding. It shows one row for every customer who has at least one real booking. A row gives their Customer number, Name, Credit limit and two money figures: Invoice balance and Booking balance. A Within credit limit column says whether they are still under their limit. At the right-hand end of each row sit three small icons with no text. The person icon opens the customer. The coin icon lists what they owe booking by booking. The banknote icon lets you spread one payment over several invoices.
You will use this when:
- a customer rings to settle up and asks how much they still owe
- a bank transfer arrives that covers several invoices at once
- a customer form shows a red Credit limit exceeded strip and you want the detail
- you look down the list at the end of the month to see who still owes you money
Words used on this screen
| The screen says | It means |
|---|---|
| Invoice balance | Paid so far, minus what you have invoiced so far |
| Booking balance | Paid so far, minus what the bookings cost in total, deposit included |
| Outstanding | On the per-booking list: invoiced minus paid, for one booking |
| To be allocated | On the bulk payment screen: the money received that is not yet assigned to an invoice |
Every way to do this task
| Route | What you get |
|---|---|
| Financials menu, Outstanding balances tile | Every customer's balances; payment icons for company administrators |
| View on the Credit limit exceeded strip of a customer form | The same per-booking list the coin icon opens, for that one customer |
| Financials menu, Payments tile, or the booking itself | A payment where you choose the method and type yourself. Not covered here |
Use this page when the money is owed on bookings you have already invoiced and you want to see or clear it. For a payment taken at the counter before the rental, record it on the booking instead.
How to use
Configuration
Two company-wide settings touch this page. Both need a company administrator account.
- From the main menu open Admin, then Settings, then click the Operational tile. On the General tab you will find Outstanding amount type, with two choices: Booking outstanding (the starting value) and Invoice outstanding. Leave it as it is. None of the screens on this page change when you switch it. The lists always show both balances, and the credit-limit check always uses the invoice balance.
- From the main menu open Admin, then Settings, then click the Financial tile. Assign bulk payment method decides which payment method is written on payments made with the banknote icon. It starts on Bank, and an empty box also counts as Bank. Pick another method if bulk payments usually arrive another way. It applies to the next bulk payment only; payments already registered keep their method.
Press Save on each screen.
Before you start: the rows on Outstanding balances and both payment routes need a company administrator account. With a normal staff account you can still press View on a customer's Credit limit exceeded strip, see the per-booking list and open a booking from it.
Using the outstanding balances list
- From the main menu open Financials, then click the Outstanding balances tile.
- Find the customer. Each column heading has its own filter box: type part of a name under Name, or set Within credit limit to show only customers over their limit. Your filters are remembered on this computer the next time you open the list.
- To see Booking balance as well, switch it on in the column menu at the right-hand end of the column headings. It starts hidden.
- To take a payment against one booking, click the coin icon on the customer's row. A second screen, also headed Customer outstanding, lists their bookings, largest Outstanding first. Next to each booking are an eye icon that opens the booking and a euro icon.
- Click the euro icon on the booking. The screen titled Register outstanding payment shows Booking number, Customer name, Total paid and Outstanding invoiced amount. You cannot change those four.
- Amount already holds the outstanding figure. Change it if the customer is paying only part. Fill in Payment reference, and External reference if the payment came with a reference of its own, such as a bank transaction number.
- Click Save. The payment is recorded at once. Cancel closes the screen without recording anything.
- To spread one payment over several invoices, go back to Outstanding balances and click the banknote icon on the customer's row. The screen says Select the invoices to allocate a (bulk) payment. Tick the invoices the payment covers. Amount and Date appear once at least one is ticked. Enter the amount received and the date it arrived.
- Click Register (bulk) payment. The next screen shows To be allocated: at the top. Below that each ticked invoice has its own Allocated amount box, already filled with the invoice's full total.
- Change the Allocated amount boxes until together they match the amount received. Set a box to 0 to leave that invoice out. Changing these boxes records nothing yet; Cancel here throws the whole bulk payment away.
- Click Register payments, then Proceed on Are you sure?. The app records one payment per invoice and takes you back to Outstanding balances.
Click Back and reopen the list to see the new figures.
Key details
A customer who owes you shows a minus figure on the first list. Both balances there are paid minus owed, so −350.00 means they owe €350 and a plus figure means they have paid more than you asked. The per-booking list works the other way round: its Outstanding column is invoiced minus paid, so the same €350 shows as 350.00.
How the two balances differ:
| Invoice balance | Booking balance | |
|---|---|---|
| Counts as owed | What you have invoiced | The full booking price including value-added tax (VAT), plus the deposit |
| A booking not yet invoiced | Adds nothing | Counts in full |
| The deposit | Only if you invoiced it | Counted, except on bookings that are returned, cancelled or a no-show |
Draft bookings, quotes and bookings that timed out are left out of both, and of the per-booking list.
A worked example. A customer has two bookings. The first van came back: €600 including VAT, invoiced for €600, with the €250 deposit paid and no rent paid yet. The second is confirmed for next week: €400 plus a €200 deposit, not invoiced and nothing paid.
| Invoice balance | Booking balance | |
|---|---|---|
| Returned booking | 250 − 600 = −350 | 250 − 600 = −350 (deposit not counted) |
| Upcoming booking | 0 − 0 = 0 | 0 − 400 − 200 = −600 |
| Row shows | −350.00 | −950.00 |
The coin icon lists the returned booking with Outstanding 350.00 and the upcoming one with 0.00. Take €350 through its euro icon and the invoice balance returns to 0.00.
The credit limit counts only invoiced money, and reaching it exactly counts as over. A customer is within their limit while invoiced minus paid is strictly below Credit limit. With €350 owed, a limit of 350.00 puts them over. A limit of 350.01 keeps them within.
Opening an over-limit customer blocks them. The moment their customer form opens, whether from the person icon or anywhere else, the app sets Blocked to yes and saves it straight away, before you press anything. The form shows Credit limit exceeded with the text "Customer exceeded cremit limit of {limit} with {amount}. To unblock the customer, first raise the credit limit or capture payments." The misspelling is the app's own. A blocked customer's bookings cannot be confirmed or picked up. Nothing removes the block by itself, not even a payment.
What a payment records. Taking a payment from the per-booking list records it on that booking as a rental payment, method Bank, dated now. A bulk payment records one payment per invoice, as a rental payment on that invoice's booking. It uses the method from Assign bulk payment method, the date you entered and the reference Inv- plus the invoice number. Neither route marks a particular invoice as paid. Where the company has a payment-received email switched on, saving a payment of more than zero sends it to the customer.
What to do next: if the customer was over their limit, raise Credit limit or take their payment first. Then untick Blocked on their customer form and press Save. See Set a customer's payment and invoicing terms for the limit itself.
Q&A
Why can I no longer confirm a booking for a customer I only looked at? Opening their customer form while they were over their credit limit set Blocked to yes, and confirming or handing over now refuses with Customer is blocked. Raise their Credit limit or take a payment on this page. Then open the customer, untick Blocked and press Save. Untick it while they are still over the limit and the next opening of the form blocks them again.
I got "Warning: allocated amount did not match control sum. Payments still have been registered." Did anything happen? Yes. Every payment was saved, even though the Allocated amount boxes did not add up to Amount. The check rounds to ten cents: for €500 received, boxes totalling 499.96 pass, and 499.94 gives the warning. Open each booking with the eye icon on the coin-icon list and check its payments before recording anything else.
Why does the bulk list show an invoice the customer has already paid? The banknote screen lists every invoice on any of the customer's bookings that still owes money. It shows each invoice at its full total, not the part still unpaid. Untick invoices that are settled, or set their Allocated amount to 0.
Why is an invoice missing from the bulk list? Only invoices on bookings that are Unconfirmed, Confirmed, PickedUp or DroppedOff, and that still owe money, are listed. Cancelled and no-show bookings never appear there. Take those through the coin icon instead.
Why did the payment I saved go down as a bank payment when the customer paid by card? The euro icon always records Bank. Record card or cash payments on the booking itself, where you choose the method. Open it with the eye icon.
Why could I save a payment larger than the outstanding amount? Nothing checks the figure against what is owed. The booking then shows a minus Outstanding, meaning the customer is in credit.
Why does "Amount is empty" or "Amount should be positive" appear? The first means Amount was cleared on Register outstanding payment. The second means Amount on the bulk screen was 0 or less when you clicked Register (bulk) payment. Enter the amount received and try again.
Why did "No email template available. Please create a template first." appear after Save? The payment was saved. Your company has no active payment-received email, so none was sent.
Why does the list show a customer with 0.00, or a customer is missing? Every customer with a real booking is listed, including those who owe nothing. If someone is missing, clear the filter boxes under the column headings, which are remembered from last time. Customers whose only bookings are drafts, quotes or timed out are not listed at all.
Why is the list empty, or why are there no icons? The rows and the payment icons need a company administrator account. Ask your administrator.
Why did changing Outstanding amount type change nothing? No screen on this page reads it. Both balances are always shown.
Related pages: Set a customer's payment and invoicing terms for the credit limit and payment terms, Cancel a booking for what a cancelled booking still costs, and Confirm a booking for the other checks that refuse a confirmation.