QuickBooks 2005: The Missing Manual

Applying Credits to Invoices

When something goes awry with the services or products you sell, customers won't be bashful about asking for a refund or credit (page 219). And customers who buy from you regularly might prefer a credit against their next order rather than a refund, so that checks aren't flying back and forth in the mail. In a business sense, a credit is a lot like a customer payment that you can apply to invoices. In QuickBooks, you apply credits differently than actual customer payments, although both take place in the Receive Payments dialog box.

Note

For small credits, it's easier to wait until the customer sends a payment to apply the credit. Quick-Books keeps track of customer credit memos (page 220), so you don't have to remember that the credit is available. When the customer sends a payment and you choose that customer in the Receive Payments dialog box, QuickBooks reminds you about the available credits. You can apply the payment and the credit in the same transaction.

Ifa customer creditis sizable and the customer has unpaid invoices, you can apply the credit to those invoices whether the customer has sent an actual payment or not.

When you're ready to apply a credit to an invoice, here's what you do:

1. Choose Customers→Receive Payments.

   QuickBooks opens the Receive Payments dialog box.

   UP TO SPEED: Different Ways to Apply Payments

   Most of the time, customers send payments that have some clear relationship to their unpaid invoices. But every once in a while, you'll ...