21st Century Accounting Tutorials - Sales

If the credit card payment is tendered at the time of the original sale, the best way to record credit card payments is by using the Payments tendered fields in the Sales/Invoices command. First be sure that the credit cards your business accepts are defined, using the Bank Accounts/Configure/Credit Cards command. The system will record the invoice and automatically record a separate receipt for the credit card amount, and the amount will also show in the Credit Card Register report (on the Bank Accounts/Print menu).

If the credit card payment is received after the original invoice is posted, or it is a payment "on account, " then follow these instructions (from Tech Note 80062):

1. Run the Sales/Invoices command to create a new invoice batch.
2. For each customer for whom you have a credit card payment, enter a Credit Memo (Trans. type of Credit Memo/Return). Do NOT specify an invoice number in the Apply to field. The desired result for applying a credit card payment will not be achieved.
3. Enter a single Invoice detail Description that says something like "Payment tendered", with a zero amount.
4. Then, in the Payment Tendered part of the screen enter the credit card used and the amount of the payment as a positive number. This will result in a negative balance for the credit memo.
5. In the Statement Descr. field you might want to say "Credit card payment" or something other than Credit Memo/Return.

When this entry is saved and posted, it will properly reduce the customer's balance by the amount of the payment, and the credit card payment will be properly recorded in the credit card register report. The credit card G/L account will be debited and the Receivables account will be credited for the amount of the payment.

The only thing missing is that the CM will not be "applied" to the invoice. The Customer Activity report will show both transactions as outstanding. These two transactions can be tied together using the procedure documented in Tech Note # 80054 if it is important to do so; otherwise you can ignore this fact.

The payment will show properly in the Receivables Receipts Journal. The only thing that looks unusual is the customer statement, which shows both the credit card payment and the credit memo. The balance on the statement is correct; it's just that the credit memo really shouldn't have to be there. We will investigate the possibility of getting statements to leave off that transaction, since it actually has zero effect on the customer's balance.

After posting the credit memo with the credit card payment, the payment amount is in your G/L as a debit in the credit card account, the same as if the credit card payment had originally been applied to the invoice at posting time. You still have to "move" that amount from the credit card account to your bank account using the Bank Account/Deposits program, as described in the topic "Depositing Credit Card Receipts." When you do this deposit step, you don't need to do a separate receipt for each credit card payment. A single receipt for the daily total should be sufficient.

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