As discussed in an earlier article entitled The Difference Between Invoices & Sales Receipts, all orders are considered "Invoices" in the system.
At the end of the day, you will want to make sure and record how each order was paid; Cash, Check, Credit Card, Money Order, Credit Memo, Loyalty Certificate, Loyalty Points or Other. This will record a zero balance due for the order.
Any order reflecting an open balance is considered in need of an Invoice. The client should be sent an invoice and kept track of via the aging report.
Below is a picture of all orders for the day (Accessible via the ACCOUNTING TAB and then click on the INVOICES link, then select your date range.)
Note that the first order is marked as paid via a credit card. The next two orders have not been paid, so invoices needs to be sent to the client.
Recording Payments
1. To access all of your tickets for a specific day or date range in need of recording of payments or invoicing, click on the Accounting Tab and click on the link for Invoices.
2. Select the date or date range desired and hit the "Apply Filters" button. A list of all orders for the date or date range will appear.
3. Note the three orders for the day we pulled up. At the far left under the "Balance Due" column, you see that all three orders have a balance that either has not been paid (Needs an Invoice) or has yet to have the payment method recorded.
For this example, we will assume the first order was paid the day of the event with a credit card. The second order was paid with a check and the third order needs an invoice.
Recording Credit Card Payment On First Order:
1. For this example, we will assume you are processing credit cards via a terminal you have outside CaterZen or through your POS system. Only when the credit card payment has actually been approved via your terminal or POS should you record it as paid in CaterZen with a credit card. Otherwise, reconciling will be a daunting task.
To record the Credit Card payment method, find the order you want to record a payment for and click on the orange "Options" button.
2. You will be given a list of possible actions you can take. Choose "Create A New Payment/Deposit On This Invoice".
3. You are now taken to the screen to record the payment. Let's examine each red outlined box:
a. Is this a payment or deposit? - You will select "Payment".
b. What is the amount of the payment? - You will enter the amount that was charged on the customer's credit card. It is usually the full amount of the order. In this example, we entered $1393.90.
c. What is the payment type? - We have chosen "Credit Card". All of the available payment types are listed.
d. Choose an Existing Credit Card or enter a new card below: - If you have the customer's card on file in CaterZen , you will pick the last four digits of the card used to make the charge. If you need to enter a new card number, you may do so here.
e. What date do you want to record for this payment? - This is the day the charge went through. Though it is usually the day of the event, you may receive the credit card number or have a successful charge some time in the future.
To access the full credit card number, please read the article entitled: How To Access The Full Credit Card Number .
f. To record the payment, click on the blue button called "Save This Payment".
4. You will now see the payment has been saved.
5. When you go back to your Invoices page, you will notice that the first order in now showing a zero balance and has been paid with a credit card.
Recording Payment With A Check On Second Order:
In our example, we are going to show the second order was paid with a check. Just follow the example for the first order (outlined above), except when given a choice of payment methods, select "Check" from the drop down.
You will still want to enter the check amount, check number and click the blue "Save This Payment" button to complete the recording of the payment.
Sending An Invoice For Payment For The Third Order:
Once all payments for the day have been recorded, you will need to send Invoices to those clients who have not provided payment. In other words, these are clients who you have given House Charge privileges to.
As a general rule, these will be orders with a Balance Due, as you will see the third order for the day has an outstanding balance of $1,316.70.
Unless you know they have already mailed you a check or will be calling you with a credit card number, you will want to email and/or mail them an invoice.
1. If you need to print a physical copy of the invoice, you can click on the blue "Print All Invoices" button to receive a PDF.
To email a copy of the Invoice to the client, then click on the orange "Options" button.
2. You will then click on the "Send This Invoice By Email" link.
3. The client's email, if in the system will appear in the box for the recipient's email. If you need to change it, please do so.
You will then hit the blue "Send Email Now" button, and the Invoice will be emailed to the client. They will use the invoice to pay what they owe you on that account.
4. We recommend you practice recording payments daily. About once a week, you will want to run an "Aging Report" to see who has outstanding balances on their Invoices and how past due they are. You will use this to keep up with collections and call clients to receive their payments.
Click here to learn how to access your Accounts Receivable Aging Report .