Payments On Account

Problem

How to handle a pre-payment. Payments on account in Goldenseal accounting software.

Diagnosis

User wants to enter money they have paid to a vendor, before any invoices are due.

Solution

To enter a pre-payment, follow these steps:

1. Choose Checking Transactions from the Accounts menu (or Cash, Credit Card etc).
2. Click New.
3. Enter Paid On Account in the Transaction Paid popup.
4. Enter other details about the payment.

To apply the pre-payment to purchases, follow these steps:

1. Enter purchases as Material Purchases transactions.
2. Choose Pay Bills from the Bank menu.
3. Double-click on the vendor name. You will see a list of purchases, plus the paid on account amount (negative).
4. To subtract the POA amount from purchases, just pay bills as normal (it will only make a bill if total is positive). To subtract part, change the POA amount in the 'pay now' column. To subtract none, click off the checkmark.

NOTE-- If you have already purchased items, do not enter a check to the vendor first! Instead, enter Material Purchases for the items, then use an instant payment or Pay Bills to create payment for the items.

Comments

Users who started out with Quicken or Quickbooks, are most likely to misuse Paid On Account transactions. They expect everything to start from the checkbook, and that's the only way to enter a check directly, without a Material Purchase to pay. Goldenseal accounting software "follows the money", so it works much better if you enter the purchase first (which you can do when you first get the materials, whether or not you pay for them then).

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Entered 5/14/01 by Dennis. Updated 10/23/2010.