Understanding Payments Received

Zoho ERP allows you to record and manage all payments collected from your customers using the Payments Received module. These payments can be applied to invoices, retainer invoices, or saved as advances for future use.

Types of Payments

You can find the following types of payments in the Payments Received module:

Invoice Payments: Payments recorded against customers’ invoices.
Retainer Payments: Payments recorded for retainer invoices.
Customer Advance: Advance payments received from customers that can be applied to invoices later.

Any payment that you receive from a customer can be recorded once and applied across their various outstanding invoices, either immediately or at a later stage.

Payment Scenarios

When recording payments, you might come across the following cases:

Record and Split Payment

You can manually record payments from customers and choose how they are applied to outstanding invoices. The payment amount can be split across multiple invoices, either fully or partially.

Scenario: Patricia receives a payment of ₹500 from her customer Nada, who has two outstanding invoices valued at ₹300 and ₹450. Patricia applies ₹300 to the first invoice (complete payment) and ₹200 to the second invoice (partial payment). The second invoice will still have a remaining balance of ₹250.

Excess Payments

The total amount received from a customer can be applied across their outstanding invoices. If the full amount is not applied, the remaining balance can be saved as an over or excess payment.

Scenario: Patricia receives a payment of ₹1,000 from her customer Nada. While recording the payment, she applies only ₹800 to the outstanding invoices. The remaining ₹200 is recorded as an excess payment.

Pro Tip: Payments with over or excess amounts will show different values for the Amount and the Unused Amount in the Payments Received page.

Multiple Payments for a Single Invoice

In some cases, a customer may make multiple payments for the same invoice instead of paying the full amount at once. You can apply these multiple payments to a single invoice until it is fully paid.

This is useful when customers pay in instalments or when payments are received at different times through different payment modes.

Scenario: Patricia raises an invoice of ₹1,000 for her customer Nada. Instead of paying the full amount at once, Nada makes two payments, ₹600 first and ₹400 later. Patricia records both payments separately and applies them to the same invoice. Once the total applied amount reaches ₹1,000, the invoice status is updated to Paid.

This ensures that: