Overview
This section discusses additional ways of paying multiple invoices for larger commercial clients. However, these are options that are possible to do for residential, single customers as well. Typically, these are only really utilized by brands with multi-property deals.
- An Overpayment on an invoice can be applied to other open invoices for that contact, all in one step. This can be done on individual invoices or in bulk.
- Many organizations work with commercial clients who won't (or don't like to) pay by individual invoices. For this situation, an organization may choose to send clients a Statement on Account - a list of all open invoices.
Settings and Navigation
If you were to click on an Open Invoice, and select the Pay option, you will see the following if there are credits available to use for that customer.
Applying Overpayment
When entering the payment amount, a checkbox will appear if the amount is greater than the balance.
Check that, and the overpayment will be applied.
Overpayment with Card on File will show an option to select which Invoices to pay with the remaining amount.
Manage By Invoices
The same can be done for invoices of multiple contacts who are managed by the same account. A similar option appears when entering an overpayment, this time for other Managed Invoices.
Statement on Account
In serviceminder, the "Statement" is behind the scenes, and is continuously updating for each customer. It's accessible via a shortcode link.
That shortcode is {contact.statement_url} - Include this shortcode in any communication with the contact and they can review all invoices and choose to pay a portion of their total balance due.
On an invoice, the customer may also find the statement view by clicking View Statement in the Open Invoices section of any Invoice.:
FAQs
Can I use the Statement of Account to pay on behalf of a client?
No, this is an external feature. Meaning that the customer needs to be sent the statement of account, add their info to pay.
Can Statement of Account use ACH?
Yes. If you have your payment processor set up with ACH as well as credit card, you can take an ACH payment on the Statement of Account.
Troubleshooting
I accidentally put the incorrect amount when adding a payment to an invoice. Now I can't write it off because the system thinks it is paid in full, what do I do?
As an example, if the invoice was $500 and you added a payment that was $550, our suggestion would be to delete the payment in SM. Then delete the payment in QBO if applicable. You would then need to record the payment as correct and writing off the rest should do it (if you incorrectly put a too high or low amount on the invoice itself).
Please be aware that the reference number/note and the payment date on the new payment should be the same.
We received a payment for multiple invoices. It looks the system automatically applies to the oldest. How do we get control over what the payment should be applied to with open invoices?
One way you could do it is create a Credit Memo of the overpayment, then you can go through and apply that to the invoices you want it on, if those are not necessarily in chronological order.
If payments were made on an invoice but you want to move it, you can do that by going to the invoice, clicking the payment, and there's a Move button in the upper right. You can move it to an open invoice of your choosing that way. For the credit card payment, instead of hitting Edit just click the Date to get a different screen with more options.
If credit memos were generated (and you don't want them), Delete the credit memos and make new ones to apply to the right invoices. Credit memos can't move the same way payments can, but also since they're just overpayments we can remove them and make new ones pretty easily.
I accidentally overcharged my customer on an invoice. When I look at the invoice, there are two payments in the top right, but nothing about the deposit. I now see something about the deposit below the subtotal where it usually is. That wasn't there when they were trying to approve the invoice.
It is a little different for each brand, so check with your Brand Admin, but the typical workflow is the deposit moves over and applies as a payment when the invoice is approved/finished, OR it moves onto an appointment if that is scheduled first (before invoicing,) then moves from the appointment to the invoice.
The deposit moved over to the appointment then the appointment was invoiced but an additional payment was added at that step. This meant the deposit is still hanging out because there was no balance due.
When finishing an appt/creating the invoice, they can create that first, save it, the deposit will move over, then they can add or run additional payments. OR they can run the partial payment at the time of creation, and still allow the deposit to move once it's finished.
I think they ran those first then the deposit didn't move over due to no balance being due. To fix, just refund the unnecessary payment.
