If I apply a credit to an invoice, it does show up properly in the “paid-to-date” portion of the invoice, and everything works properly there (the important things).
However, if I go to the payments tab (as attached), these do not show up properly and say $0.00 there for both the “Amount” and “Applied”. Expected: $2.19 and $2.19
Of course, this has other repercussions like sending payment applied emails to the client that say “We have received your partial payment of $0.00! Thanks!”
Okay, ran some more tests. I can recreate the issue.
Attached is the payment history of an invoice with two partial payments. Payment 1026 is a payment for $2.50 that I created from the Payments menu, and with payment type of “Credit” (everything is perfect with this)
Payment 1027 is a payment for $1.50 that I created as a “Credit” from the Credits menu, and it carries that /$0.00 that the other one doesn’t have.
I’m guessing that when you create a credit first, and then apply it, it wipes out the “Balance” of the credit and that’s where the $0.00 is coming from.
I can understand why this looks odd. Payment “amount” reflects actual revenue received.
A credit may be generated from a payment that has been made previously, so displaying a payment amount twice in this section would “double up” the payment amount listed.
We can look into a better way to display this so that it makes more sense, perhaps a Payment amount and credit applied label would at least clarify this.
Interesting, thanks @david I appreciate the explanation on this.
That would be great, except that it won’t let me “overpay” an invoice with a payment to automatically create such a credit (would be kind of awesome if it did allow this). I just had a client overpay an invoice, and when entering their check (see screenshot below), I’ll have to enter part of their check to pay for the invoice in full, and then create a separate credit with the same notes (check #1234, etc.) so I have their entire check accounted for:
Sounds reasonable. I don’t know how, but if this is implemented, maybe the optional email sent when a credit is applied should reflect that instead of the payment (a.k.a. revenue) amount of $0.
It also shows as $0.00 in the customer portal, so that’s kind of confusing for the client (I think I may start to use credits as a placeholder, and then create a separate payment of “credit” when I’m ready to use them and delete the original credit - provided they are smaller than the invoice I am applying them to. This instead of actually converting a credit to a payment kind of creates what makes the most sense to me…)
Maybe the payments and the credits could be separated…as in, just share a note or something; the credit would decrease, but the payment would be like any standalone payment where type “credit” is selected and not necessarily tied to the original credit (and maybe things are too tied together for other important reasons and that’s crazy talk)
So, I’m kind of afraid to use credits as they are intended. I’m not sure how, but I believe through credits - I have ended up creating a few temporary invoices, creating a credit, applying as a partial payment, applying another partial payment, and then deleting all payments and credits - and I ended up with a “paid to date” of a negative (so -1.50) for that particular client. With all payments, credits, and invoices deleted, it will not zero out.
(It still thinks that $1.50 was paid, even with all payments deleted.)
I can’t make it make sense but I think it has something to do with credits taking away as much as it was for when deleted (I had a $1.50 credit applied as a payment). Fortunately this has only happened with my “Test Client” and actual clients didn’t suffer the same fate.
I am noting a very similar/same issue in the emails that go out when a credit is applied. I view this as mostly aesthetic, but it is potentially confusing for a client. For example, I applied a large sum credit today and the email went out as “Thank you for your payment of $0.00.” so I felt compelled to send out my own email to explain they don’t still owe. I get that it’s not really a new “payment” exactly, but I think the wording is still confusing for the average user/client/customer.
Perhaps if it could be changed to something along the lines of “A credit of _ has been applied to invoice _” it would be more clear? But that might mean adding a whole new template just for credit emails? I don’t know, that gets into behind-the-scenes of how the code is set up. I just think the email could be more understandable to the client somehow.
