Support Suite

When receiving money on an invoice, you may encounter a scenario where the customer sends you a payment that is less than the invoice balance.  You can try applying the payment amount on an invoice with a lesser amount, but that may not be possible or desired.  In the screenshot below, a payment amount of $161 was received and keyed in.  You would like to apply it on their invoice, but it's total is $162.  When you place a checkmark next to that invoice, the line turns light red, indicating an underpayment.  Also, the yellow message area indicates that the invoice was underpaid by $1.

If you hit the Post button to apply the underpayment, you will be presented with a message indicating the underpayment and its amount.  You have two options.  Either leave this as an underpayment or write off the remaining balance.

Leave This As An Underpayment

If you choose to leave this as an underpayment and hit the Accept button, then you will receive a confirmation that the payment was posted successfully.  However, the invoice will remain open.  The previous payment column will reflect the $161 that you just applied, and there will still be a balance of $1.  You would typically use this scenario when you have full intention to collecting the rest of the money from the customer.

Write Off The Remaining Balance

Your other option is to write off the remaining balance.  This option is useful if you do not want to be bothered with this invoice anymore and want it marked as fully paid.  Perhaps the customer sent you the wrong amount of money in error, and it would take more time and resources to go after that one dollar.  This option is perfect for that.  Once you choose this option, you can optionally choose a different ledger account for the writeoff.  The default is the Writeoff Expense account, which is of the expense type.

Once you hit the Accept button, the payment will get posted and the invoice will get marked as paid.  The appropriate ledger transactions will also be made for the writeoff.  If you go to the Ledger Account Transactions screen for the ledger account you choose, you will see the transaction.

That should cover the two options of what you can do when a customer sends you an underpayment for an invoice.