Record a customer payment

Your customer has just paid. By the end of this guide, you will know how to record that payment on their invoice, even when it is partial or paid with several methods, and what SynkriaOps posts in the books.

Before you start

• The invoice is validated: a draft cannot receive a payment.
• Your company has at least one treasury account (bank, cash register or mobile money wallet). Otherwise, the payment window offers Create an account; see Set up a bank account.

Record the payment

1. Open Sales → Customer invoices and click the invoice. You can also use the ⋯ menu on its row.

2. Click Mark as paid. The Record a payment window opens with the outstanding amount.

3. Enter the payment date, then for the payment method:

   Field	What you enter
   Method	Bank transfer, Cheque, Cash, a mobile money wallet or Credit card
   Credited account	The account the money actually reached: bank, cash register, wallet
   Amount	The sum received, at most the outstanding amount
   Reference	Cheque number, transfer reference or mobile money transaction ID

4. Check Outstanding after payment at the bottom of the window, then click Record payment.

The invoice turns Paid if the outstanding amount reaches zero, Partial otherwise.

A customer paying in two instalments, or two methods

For a partial payment, simply enter the amount received: the rest remains due and is settled later the same way. For a payment with several methods on the same day (part in cash, the rest by mobile money), click Add a payment method: each method has its own account, amount and reference.

Mobile money wallets offered

Orange Money, MTN MoMo, Wave, Moov Money, Airtel Money and Free Money. For another operator, choose Other mobile money and put its name in the reference. The method chosen appears in the entry’s description. The same methods are offered when paying a supplier.

What SynkriaOps records

Each payment method produces an entry in the journal of the chosen treasury account:

BQ Payment FC-26-AA00042, SARL Optima, bank transfer

Compte	Intitulé	Débit	Crédit
521100	Bank	1 431 813
411001	Customer SARL Optima		1 431 813
Totaux Écriture équilibrée		1 431 813	1 431 813 XAF

In the same operation, the customer account line is matched with the invoice line: the customer’s ledger shows this invoice as settled. The entry description carries the invoice number, the customer, the method and the reference.

A mistake is not deleted

A recorded payment creates an accounting entry. If the amount or the account is wrong, it is not erased: it is corrected by a reversal. See Post and reverse an entry.

Payment subject to approval

If your company has set up an approval workflow for receipts, the payment goes to approval: no entry is posted and the invoice does not change until an approver accepts the request.

Collect from the bank statement

When the payment arrives through the bank or a wallet whose statement you import, you can also reconcile it with the invoice from treasury, without this window. See Import a bank statement and Bank reconciliation.

Fix common problems

Message or situation	Cause	Solution
The Mark as paid button does not appear	Draft invoice, already paid, or credit note	Validate the invoice, or check its status
”Total paid … cannot exceed the outstanding balance”	Amount larger than the balance	Enter the outstanding amount; an overpayment is handled apart
”Select a credited account for each method”	A method has no account	Choose the bank, cash register or wallet
”No cash register or bank account has been created”	No treasury account	Click Create an account

See also

• Sales statuses →
• Automatic payment reminders →
• Reconcile counterparty accounts →