Weekly Dynamic: Prepayments

The question "How do I cut a check for a prepayment/deposit when there's no invoice yet?" comes up quite a bit. So we'll take a quick look at this today.

Scenarios for this include prepayments, deposits, down payments, etc. where you have to put up cash today but might not see an invoice until later. Most folks go to Transactions-Purchasing-Transaction entry and then get stuck.

In v9.0 and up you have 2 options.

1) Cut a Miscellaneous check using Tranactions-Financial-Miscellaneous Check. But this can create problems when the transaction is incomplete. Maybe you'll get an invoice later for 1st months rent and your deposit so you want to apply the deposit to make that invoice right.

The traditional (and better) option is to:

2) Use Transaction-Purchasing-Edit Check. This is the same window you use to adjust amounts in check batches, but instead, just enter the information necessary for your prepayment.

Cut the check as it's own batch or as part of a larger check run. You end up with a credit in AP (to offset the coming invoice) and a debit to the appropriate account (deposits, expense, etc.). Just don't apply the check to any existing invoices. In fact, don't apply it to anything.

That's all there is to it and if you know how to cut regular AP checks it's a snap.