Recording Prepaid Deposits

Occasionally customers may want to create prepaid deposits with the organization, by sending in a check or some other type of payment for a set amount of money, to be applied to any future orders made by that customer. These can be configured within Aptify so that when the customer makes an order, these prepaid deposits can be applied against the balance owed.

This process involves creating a Payment and specifying that it applies to a new order. The system then automatically generates an order for the Prepaid Deposit product that corresponds to the customer's payment type (see Linking a Prepaid Deposit Product to a Payment Type). This generated order has an order total of 0. Applying the payment against this order causes the order balance to become negative, generating a credit memo that can then be used to pay for future purchases.

Follow these steps to record a prepaid deposit or a payment made in advance:

1. Open a new Payments record.
2. Complete the Person and Company fields to identify who has submitted the advanced payment.
3. Click the Details tab and enter information about the payment received.
   • Select the applicable Payment Type and complete the corresponding fields, including Currency Type and payment details.
   • The selected Payment Type should have a Generate Credit Memo Product specified. See Linking a Prepaid Deposit Product to a Payment Type for details.
     
     
4. Return to the Payment Lines tab and click the New button to open a new Payment Lines record.
   
   
    
5. Select New Order from the options in the Applies To drop-down list.
6. Enter the amount of the advanced payment in the Amount field.
   • This amount is expressed in the currency specified on the Payments record's Details tab.
      
7. Click OK to save the payment line and return to the Payments form.
   • The Payment Amount is updated to match the amount specified in the payment line.
     
     
8. Save the Payments record.

• • The system automatically generates and marks as shipped a credit memo that can be applied to future orders. The Order ID for this credit memo appears in the Order column of the payment line. Also, the Applies To value changes from New Order to Entire Order.
  • See About the Credit Memo Payment Type for information on how to use the Credit Memo payment type and apply credit memos to other orders.
    
    
  • The generate credit memo has a credit balance in the amount of the advance payment.
    
     

This process involves first creating an order with a total and a balance of zero. Next, the payment is applied against this zero-balance order. Applying the payment against the zero balance order causes the order balance to become negative, generating a credit memo that can then be used to pay for future purchases.

Follow these steps to create a prepaid deposit order:

1. Open a new record from the Orders service.
2. Enter Ship To and Bill To information on the Customer tab.
   • This section provides only an overview of the order entry process. It is intended to focus on how creating a Prepaid Deposit order differs from standard orders. See Entering Customer and Order Information for complete information on how to specify customer information on an order.
      
3. In the Lines area of the Orders form, enter the Prepaid Deposit product in the Find Product field.
4. Enter 1 in the Quantity field.
5. Click Add to add an order line to the form.
6. Verify that the price is zero, and that both the Order Total and Balance Due fields are zero.  
   
    
7. Click the Payment tab.
8. Select Purchase Order as the Payment Type.
9. Enter N/A in the PO # field.  
   
    
10. Save the order.
11. Ship the order, if the system did not ship it automatically.
12. Click the Payment > Payments for Orders sub-tab.
13. Click the New icon in the toolbar to open a new Payments record.
14. Click OK when prompted that the current balance for the order is $0.00.
    • The Payments record opens and the fields in the top area are already filled out with information from the current order. Also, Aptify automatically created a $0.00 payment line since the order has no outstanding balance.
      
      
15. In the Payment Lines tab, double-click the entry that was automatically generated by Aptify to open the corresponding Payment Lines record.
    
     
16. Change the Amount field from 0.00 to the amount of the Prepaid Deposit.  
17. Click OK.
18. Click the Details tab.
19. Select the Payment Type associated with the means of payment received for the Prepaid Deposit. Then, enter any other necessary information about the payment.
    
     
20. Save the Payments record.
21. Return to the Prepaid Deposit order.
    • It now has a negative balance equal to the amount of the payment, as illustrated in the figure below.
       
22. Save and close the order.
23. Click No if the system asks you if you want to modify the payment to pay the order in full.
    • The order can be used as a credit memo to pay for future purchases. See About the Credit Memo Payment Type for information on how to use the Credit Memo payment type and apply credit memos to other orders.