assign 1 payment to different invoices

[Geert Janssens]

On Thursday 29 January 2015 08:01:05 David Gillam wrote:
> I may not be doing it correctly, but the following seems to work for
> me:
> 
> 3 invoices as described below, 1 payment as described below.  Let's
> say the payment is check #1234.
> 
> Pay invoice 1: $3, check #1234, remaining balance = $2
> Pay invoice 2: $2, check #1234, remaining balance = $8
> Pay invoice 3: $1, check #1234, remaining balance = $3
> 
> Note how the three payments are all the same check number.
> 
> I have one customer who routinely pays multiple invoices with one
> check, so in my case, usually the remaining balance on each invoice
> is $0.  There are times when the customer doesn't write a check large
> enough to pay all invoices, so I just apply the amount to pay in full
> the oldest invoice(s) leaving a partial payment on the newest
> invoice.  I then notify the customer of the current payment status.
> 
> Is there anything wrong with this method?
> 
Hi David,

What you do is perfectly ok from an accounting point of view.

The difference between your and my solution is that you end up with 3 
payment transactions and I end up with one. I took Tereque's question as 
if he wanted to end up with only one payment transaction in the end as 
only one payment really happened. But that's mostly taste.

If you are ok with multiple transactions I would surely recommend your 
way of handling it. It's much more straightforward.

Note that both methods are only for situations where you need to have 
control over which part of the payment goes to which invoice. If the 
invoices can be paid in a fifo order (first-in-first-out), you can 
simply select all invoices in the payment window, set the amount of the 
payment and hit ok. In the original example that would result in 
INV1 receives $5
INV2 receives $1
INV2 unpaid

>From an accounting point of view that is perfectly fine as well. In 
accounting receivables are against a customer, not against individual 
invoices. The split over invoices can be done for practical reasons.

Geert