Workflow- Payment on Multiple Invoices

[kenlyle]

From the feature list, it looks like a lot of work went into 4.0.

 

However, there seems to some stupidity in the processing of payments. First, the docs say that one should create a transaction for a payment received by applying it to an invoice. I was shocked to see that when I entered a transaction not on an invoice, it does not show up as a credit that I can apply to invoices. This seems to be a bug, in any case. Registering an incoming payment transaction should create a credit.

 

So I have to apply an $X000 payment to an $X00 invoice, which really doesn't make any sense to me, but OK. Then, there seems to be no easy way to multi-select the invoices, and mass apply a credit. So, from each invoice, I have to click the client's name, then scroll the invoice list, and manually apply a credit to each one, and in this case, there are almost 20.

 

Then, when I open the invoice, the available credit is listed at the top of the page, and the invoice total is at the bottom. The invoice amount is not the default, or suggested, credit to apply. Duh. So I have to scroll down, and copy the invoice total into the credit box, then manually do the same thing on the other 19 invoices.

 

It would be great if this could get some attention.

 

Best,

Ken

[WHMCS Andrew]

To apply a payment to multiple invoices you add a transaction and in the invoiceid box enter the invoice ids you wish to apply the payment to seperated by a comma

 

eg:

1,4,6,8,21,54,75

[kenlyle]

Wow, that's interesting. I didn't see that on the screen, which would have been helpful.

 

I think I ended up just applying the big payment to the first invoice, and then applied bits of the credit manually.

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

Best,

Ken

[drtduarte]

I would like to have a list of the invoices available and tick each that I wish to pay with that amount...

[kenlyle]

Yeah to the last poster. That would be a vast improvement...maybe the Enter transaction screen should list open invoices for that client with those very checkboxes.

[Lawrence]

Yeah to the last poster. That would be a vast improvement...maybe the Enter transaction screen should list open invoices for that client with those very checkboxes.

 

Something perhaps like a multiple select dropdown that listed unpaid invoices for that client. A large payment would then be applied to all the invoices, starting with the oldest (lowest invoice ID maybe?) and work up to the newest.

[kenlyle]

Thanks, Lar, but I am thinking that the checkbox/list interface works best, because it seems more natural to have a control somewhere that would tell you how much of the transaction has been applied, and/or how much remains. And, you'd probably want to have the invoice number, date, and amount, and that might be crowded in a dropdown list, if I am understanding correctly...

 

Thanks,

K

 

Example:

===========================================

Transaction: $500, PayPal, Transaction Number, etc.

---

Open Invoices for this client:

 

Inv# Date Amount Checkbox

134 1/1/09 100 X

212 4/1/09 200 X

 

You have applied $300, and have $200 remaining

 

===========================================

[Lawrence]

Thanks, Lar, but I am thinking that the checkbox/list interface works best, because it seems more natural to have a control somewhere that would tell you how much of the transaction has been applied, and/or how much remains. And, you'd probably want to have the invoice number, date, and amount, and that might be crowded in a dropdown list, if I am understanding correctly...

 

Thanks,

K

 

Example:

===========================================

Transaction: $500, PayPal, Transaction Number, etc.

---

Open Invoices for this client:

 

Inv# Date Amount Checkbox

134 1/1/09 100 X

212 4/1/09 200 X

 

You have applied $300, and have $200 remaining

 

===========================================

 

What I do not understand is not having Add Funds automatically do something similar. Say you have 2 unpaid invoices ($10 each) and you add $30 to your account. Before it adds the $30 as a credit, it would use it to pay off the unpaid invoices and leave $10 as credit.

 

In my experience, this is how many of our customers expect it to work.

 

Note: I am not sure if v4 does this, but I don't think 3.8 did...

[kenlyle]

Andrew's tip above might be useful in some cases, but seems to require the user to view the invoice list, and either memorize or copy the invoice numbers somehow...that might work in certain circumstances, but not in cases where there is a large payment that might apply to a dozen or more invoices.

 

I like WHMCS, but I don't understand either why such a core area (applying payments) is so weak.

 

K

[Austdata]

It's the customers money and they get to say where it will be spent. The select list is the best idea yet, at least for Australian accounting standards.

 

It would be correct if the customer has the select list but failing that then the host. Perhaps it would be possible to have one at each end.

[RyanH]

A client can apply credit to any invoice they wish from the client area if they have credit in their account. When they open an invoice there's a big red box saying they have credit and how much do they want to apply. Admins can do the same so I don't see the point.

[othellotech]

I was shocked to see that when I entered a transaction not on an invoice, it does not show up as a credit that I can apply to invoices. This seems to be a bug, in any case. Registering an incoming payment transaction should create a credit.

 

Yes I would call it a bug and it is really annoying...

[striddy]

To apply a payment to multiple invoices you add a transaction and in the invoiceid box enter the invoice ids you wish to apply the payment to seperated by a comma

 

eg:

1,4,6,8,21,54,75

 

Are you sure this works? I just tried adding a transaction to pay two invioce id's in version 4.0.1 and it only applied the payment to the first invoice id, not the second.

[kenlyle]

Full of optimism, I just tried this...I copied the list of invoices to Ultraedit, and used column mode to extract them, and then edited them to a comma delimited string of invoice numbers...about 10 invoices, and got exactly one of them paid, the first one. This appears to still be a non-feature. Worthy of note, no useful information or anything remotely Helpish on the Add Transaction screen, not even a tooltip.

 

I am in 4.1.1, not the very latest, 4.1.2, so maybe that's the ticket.

 

Still love WHMCS, still incredulous at the lameness of handling payments.

 

Oh, and once your transaction isn't credited to the dozen or so invoices, you can't go back and check the box to have it added to the customer's credit balance, because that checkbox isn't there anymore. The best option seems to be to delete it, and start over.

 

K

Edited February 12, 2010 by kenlyle

[avans]

WHMCS staff.... Any comment on this?

 

I agree this is a bug (or missing feature). It's very important, as applying payments is pain right now. For those of us paying someone to handle the books, missing features like this cost us time and thus money.

 

WHMCS is so great overall, so why not fix some of these important features to try and achieve perfection???

[Matt]

You've revived quite an old thread here (May 09). Since then the following changes have been made:

 

Checkbox added to the Add Transaction screen for automatically adding a non invoice specific payment/transaction to a clients credit balance automatically at the time of entry

 

Client area mass payment feature which allows clients to tick checkboxes next to the invoices they want to pay and then submit 1 payment for the entire lot which gets automatically applied to all the invoices chosen

 

And then as mentioned originally, there is the option for an admin to apply a payment to multiple invoices from the Billing > Transactions > Add area which will auto apply the payment to each invoice specified in turn until the payment is either used up, or if the payment exceeds the total due from all the invoices then a credit for any extra is automatically created.

 

Matt

[drosendo]

I cant find the checkbox in the invoices client area page. Has it been removed?

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