Split one bank transfer over several invoices

Introduction

Business customers often pay several invoices with one bank transfer. RentVisie lets you book that single sum against all the invoices it covers in one go, instead of recording a separate payment on every booking. The app calls this a (bulk) payment.

There is no upload of a bank-statement file. You look at the transfer in your bank's own system, then enter it in RentVisie by hand, one customer at a time. The work happens on two screens. The first is headed Customer outstanding, with the line "Select the invoices to allocate a (bulk) payment." underneath. It is a table of the customer's open invoices with a tick box on each row. The second screen shows To be allocated: at the top, then the amount received, then one card per invoice you ticked. Each card has an Allocated amount box.

You will use this when:

• a lease customer pays three monthly invoices with one transfer at the end of the quarter
• a customer's transfer says "invoices 20412, 20437 and part of 20455"
• a customer paid less than the total and you need to decide which invoices the money covers
• a bank transfer arrived that covers invoices on different bookings

Words used on these screens

Every way to record a payment

Use this page when one amount of money covers more than one invoice for the same customer.

How to use

Configuration

One setting decides which payment method is written on bulk payments.

1. From the main menu open Admin, then Settings, then click the Financial tile. The screen is headed Financial settings.
2. Find Assign bulk payment method. It starts on Bank, and an empty box also counts as Bank. Pick another method only if bulk sums usually arrive some other way.
3. Click Save.

The setting applies to bulk payments you register from then on. Payments already registered keep their method.

Before you start: the Outstanding balances list, both bulk screens and the Financial settings screen need a Company admin account. With another account the list stays empty and the icons do not appear. Ask your administrator.

Using the bulk payment screens

1. From the main menu open Financials, then click the Outstanding balances tile. Find the customer by typing part of their name in the filter box under Name.
2. At the right-hand end of the customer's row are three small icons with no text. Click the third one, the banknote. The Customer outstanding screen opens with the customer's open invoices. It shows Invoice number, Booking number and Total amount incl vat.
3. Tick every invoice the transfer covers. Only after the first tick do Amount, Date and the Register (bulk) payment button appear above the table.
4. Enter the sum from the bank statement in Amount. Date already holds today's date and time. Change it to the day the money arrived.
5. Click Register (bulk) payment. A second screen opens.
6. At the top, To be allocated: shows the amount received minus the invoice totals. It is on a red background while it is not zero, and on green once it is zero. Below it is Amount, which you cannot change here. Below that is one card per ticked invoice. Each card shows the invoice and booking number and the Invoice amount. Each card's Allocated amount box starts at the invoice's full total.
7. Correct the Allocated amount boxes to match what the customer says they paid. Type 0 in a box to leave that invoice out. To be allocated updates each time you leave a box. Nothing is saved yet.
8. Click Register payments once To be allocated is on green. The app asks Are you sure?. Click Proceed.

The app records one payment per invoice and takes you back to Outstanding balances. Cancel on the second screen throws the whole bulk payment away. To undo a bulk payment after it is registered, delete the payments one by one. See Payment problems for what deleting a payment changes.

Key details

A worked example. De Vries Bouw BV transfers €1,850.00. The remittance note says "20412 and 20437 in full, rest on 20455". Their open invoices are:

You tick all three, enter 1850.00 and click Register (bulk) payment. Each box starts at its invoice's full total, €1,945.00 together. To be allocated shows −95.00 on red. The money does not cover everything, so you change the box for 20455 from 545.00 to 450.00. To be allocated turns 0.00 on green. Register payments records €620.00, €780.00 and €450.00. Booking 3325 still owes €95.00.

What each payment looks like. Each one is saved as a Rental payment on the invoice's booking. It carries the method from Assign bulk payment method, the Date you entered and the reference Inv- plus the invoice number, for example Inv-20455. A box left at 0 records nothing. The booking's paid totals update straight away. The payment is added to the booking, not marked against the invoice itself.

The customer may get one email per invoice. If your company has a payment-received email switched on, every payment above zero sends one. In the example the customer receives three emails.

The control-sum warning. You can click Register payments while To be allocated is still red. The app then shows "Warning: allocated amount did not match control sum. Payments still have been registered.". The payments are saved all the same. In the warning, Registered amount is the total of your boxes and Allocated is the Amount you received. The labels read the wrong way round. The check rounds both figures to ten cents first. For €1,850.00 received, boxes totalling 1849.96 pass without a warning, while 1849.94 gives the warning. So a few cents out can go through with no message. Always get To be allocated to 0.00 on green before you register.

Bulk payments are never deposits. Every bulk payment is recorded as rent, even if part of the transfer was meant as a deposit. If a transfer includes a deposit, leave that part out here. Record it on the booking as a deposit, see Deposits and pre-authorisation. A deposit that is already paid counts towards what the booking owes. A booking whose deposit covers its invoices is therefore not in the list at all.

What to do next: click Back and reopen the customer's row on Outstanding balances to check the new balance. If part of an invoice is still open, as with 20455 above, chase the rest with a payment request.

Q&A

I got "Warning: allocated amount did not match control sum". Did anything happen? Yes, every payment was saved. Open each booking concerned and check its payments. Delete a payment that is wrong and record the right one on the booking, see Recording a payment.

Why did "Could not find: Booking 3318" or "Could not find: Invoice 20437" appear? An invoice or booking you ticked was deleted or changed after you opened the list. Nothing was registered, not even the other rows, and setting that box to 0 does not help. Click Cancel, then open the banknote icon again. The deleted invoice is no longer listed. If both are missing, the message runs them together, as in Booking 3318Invoice 20437.

Why is there a row with invoice number 0? That invoice is still a draft and has not been given a number yet. Do not tick it. Payments cannot be matched to a draft correctly. Issue the invoice first, see Invoice numbers and dates.

Why does one row show a minus total? It is a credit note on one of the customer's bookings. Leave it unticked, or set its box to 0. Take the credit off the invoice it corrects instead: if the customer paid €620.00 minus a €100.00 credit, allocate 520.00 to that invoice. See Credit notes.

Why does the list show an invoice the customer has already paid? The list shows every invoice on any of the customer's bookings that still owes money, at its full total. A paid invoice on a booking with another open invoice still appears. Untick it or set its box to 0.

Why is an invoice missing from the list? Only bookings that are Unconfirmed, Confirmed, PickedUp or DroppedOff, and that still owe money, are listed. Cancelled and no-show bookings never appear. Record those payments through the coin icon on Outstanding balances, see Check what a customer owes and take a payment.

Can a transfer cover invoices of two different customers? Not in one go. The screen only lists one customer's invoices. Split the transfer and do each customer separately.

Why did the app accept a minus figure in an Allocated amount box? Nothing checks the sign. A minus figure records a negative payment on that booking. Set the box to 0 instead, unless you really mean to reverse money.

Why does "Amount should be positive" appear? Amount on the first screen was 0 or less when you clicked Register (bulk) payment. Enter the sum you received.

Why did the payment go down as Bank when the money came in another way? The method comes from Assign bulk payment method under Financial settings, which starts on Bank. Change the setting, see Configuration above. Payments already registered keep their method.

Why is the Outstanding balances list empty, or why is there no banknote icon? You need a Company admin account. Ask your administrator.

Related pages: Check what a customer owes and take a payment for balances and single payments, Refunds if the customer paid more than they owed, and Accounting sync for how payments reach your bookkeeping.