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How can I ignore tiny unpaid amounts on invoices?
We quite often get invoices which are underpaid by less than a pound. They clog up the top of the list of unpaid invoices in FreeAgent, making it more difficult to find the ones we care about: the ones where our clients owe us serious money.
Is there away of writing off the unpaid few pennies, without cancelling the entire invoice?
Is there away of writing off the unpaid few pennies, without cancelling the entire invoice?
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Jack,
Hmmm. When you enter the transfer explanation for one end it should automatically create the transfer from the other end, and match it up with the existing raw transaction. As long as the values are exactly the same (opposite in sign, obviously).
This is working OK for our test data.
Could you tell me how far apart in days the transfer transactions are?
Maybe could you also email me (ed at freeagentcentral dot co dot uk) the IDs of the various transactions and I'll take a detailed look (the IDs are shown in the URL, if you send me the URLs of the edit pages of each I can work it out).
I’m sorry this is difficult. It shouldn't be.
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Jack,
In that case you should explain the Paypal receipt as full payment of the invoice, which will leave a bit left over. This should be explained as Bank/Finance Charges.
So say your invoice is for £5,000. Paypal take a £25 fee, so the paypal transaction comes to a credit of £4975.
You actually add an 'Invoice Receipt' explanation for £5000, which leaves a £25 payment (debit) unexplained. This you then explain as the Bank/Finance Charge fee.
No need to write-off anything in this case. If you did need to in the future, because a client really does let you down, there's be a button on the Invoice page for sent but not-fully-paid invoices called 'Write Off Unpaid'.
I’m hoping that makes sense
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this answers the question
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Inappropriate?Not yet. It might be possible to add a 'write-off unpaid amount' facility - there are some complexities caused by how this works with generating VAT returns (which you may or may not care about) - but it's something we could look at.
Do your clients seriously routinely round down their payments? Nice.
Anyway, another thing we could do is just 'mark as paid' if there's less than £1 overdue. This could be a quick thing to do; would it be enough?
(We would need to think about the effects on cash-based VAT returns in the longer term). -
Inappropriate?I think the first idea is a good one: 'write off unpaid amount'. For example, we have a client who underpaid us by £40 on one invoice. Not nothing, but we've given up trying to chase him, and he paid the other £500, so it's not the end of the world. I want a way to stop that invoice appearing at the top of the list. That feature would also sort out the tiny amounts which don't get paid. -
Inappropriate?OK, we'll work on 'Write-off unpaid amount' - I'll post on this thread to let you know when you can expect to see that.
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Inappropriate?Hey, whereabouts is this "Write off unpaid" option? I received a payment through PayPal and need to write off the PayPal fee, but I can't find it anywhere.
I’m confused
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Inappropriate?Jack,
In that case you should explain the Paypal receipt as full payment of the invoice, which will leave a bit left over. This should be explained as Bank/Finance Charges.
So say your invoice is for £5,000. Paypal take a £25 fee, so the paypal transaction comes to a credit of £4975.
You actually add an 'Invoice Receipt' explanation for £5000, which leaves a £25 payment (debit) unexplained. This you then explain as the Bank/Finance Charge fee.
No need to write-off anything in this case. If you did need to in the future, because a client really does let you down, there's be a button on the Invoice page for sent but not-fully-paid invoices called 'Write Off Unpaid'.
I’m hoping that makes sense
The company says
this answers the question
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Inappropriate?Hi Ed,
Thanks. My mistake was marking the withdrawal from PayPal into my bank account as the invoice receipt, rather than uploading the PayPal statement.
I have another problem though, and perhaps this belongs in its own topic:
I received the payment through PayPal, and the fee was taken off, and this is all explained perfectly in FreeAgent. However I then transferred that to my current account. I now have an unexplained debit in PayPal and an unexplained credit in my current account. However if I explain one of them as a transfer to/from the other account it doesn't associate itself with the transaction in the other account, but instead creates a new transaction for the same amount, so I end up with two transactions. How can I fix that? -
Inappropriate?Jack,
Hmmm. When you enter the transfer explanation for one end it should automatically create the transfer from the other end, and match it up with the existing raw transaction. As long as the values are exactly the same (opposite in sign, obviously).
This is working OK for our test data.
Could you tell me how far apart in days the transfer transactions are?
Maybe could you also email me (ed at freeagentcentral dot co dot uk) the IDs of the various transactions and I'll take a detailed look (the IDs are shown in the URL, if you send me the URLs of the edit pages of each I can work it out).
I’m sorry this is difficult. It shouldn't be.
The company says
this answers the question
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Inappropriate?Hi Edd,
The transactions are 6 days apart (23rd - 29th). This does usually work perfectly (for other accounts), this is the first time I tried it with PayPal.
I've emailed you the IDs. -
Inappropriate?I can't find the "Write off unpaid" option. Has it been removed? If so what's the recommended way of dealing with small underpayments?
I’m confused
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Inappropriate?Hi Tamlyn,
You can't see the "Write off unpaid" button until the invoice is overdue, i.e. the due date has passed.
If you need to see this sooner, click on the "Edit Details" button at the top right of the invoice and bring the due date forward.
Does that help, please?
Kind regards,
Emily
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This answers the question
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Perhaps the write off unpaid option should be displayed as soon as the invoice is marked as sent? Or once a portion of the invoice has been paid? For my situation (and Tim who started this thread) it's not about the invoice becoming overdue, it's about the invoice being underpaid by a small amount. It doesn't make much sense for me to have to wait until the invoice becomes overdue or to go back and edit an invoice which has already been sent. -
Inappropriate?Hi Tamlyn,
Further to your comment I'd be interested to hear what other users think and try and establish a consensus - would the "Write off unpaid" option be helpful appearing earlier?
All views welcome!
Please also see Ed's reply above to Jack which explains how to deal with transactions when a small charge (e.g. a PayPal fee) has been deducted from an invoice.
Kind regards,
Emily
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