Allocating Payments & Credits

A payment or adjustment note/credit note should be entered as a negative amount.

Once you have entered the payment or credit or adjustment note, its relevant details and the amount, you are taken to the allocations screen.

At the top of the invoice allocation screen the account code and name is displayed plus other information including:

Amount

The amount of money to allocate to invoices/transactions. This is the payment transaction amount and cannot be changed from this screen.

Discount

The discount you are entitled to for this account, such as an early settlement discount.

CAPITAL supports two methods of discount calculation:

Automatic Settlement (Percentage) Discounts

The amount of discount the account is entitled to is automatically calculated depending on which transactions are paid (allocated). You may allocate this calculated balance to various transaction by placing the applicable amounts in the discount column next to the transaction that has been paid.

Automatic calculations are performed when you specify an early settlement discount percentage against the customer or supplier account.

For example, if you have set your account to allow a 3% discount if paid in 7 days, and you apply a payment amount against a transaction that is equal to or less than 7 days old, the amount of discount the account is entitled to is calculated automatically. If the invoice value was $100 and your payment allocation was $100, then CAPITAL would automatically calculate the discount entitlement as 3% of $100 or $3. If you tick the box under the P column to indicate that the transaction should be fully paid, then the amount allocated would be calculated automatically as $97 and the discount amount as $3.00.

You cannot edit the discount amount in this mode, as it is calculated automatically, subject to which transactions you allocate as paid. However, you do not have to allocate the calculated discount amount against the account if you do not wish to.

Manual Discount Allocations

When an early settlement discount is not specified or the Discount Taken percentage is set to zero, you may allocate discounts manually. Enter the total dollar amount of discount you wish to allocate in the Discount field. Then allocate portions of this amount under the Discount column against each applicable transaction.

Allocated

The total amount of money including the discount to allocate (if applicable), that has been allocated to invoices so far. This is calculated automatically and cannot be changed.

Balance

The amount of money that has not yet been allocated. This is calculated automatically and cannot be changed.

Unallocated Transactions or Recent Transactions

All payments and credits that have not been fully allocated are displayed here by deault. You may select another payment or credit to view and allocate, by selecting it from this list. If you select a different transaction number from the list, the allocations of the currently selected transaction are saved, and the allocations of the payment or credit you have selected is opened.

If you tick Unallocated Transactions a list of all payments and credits or adjustment notes that have been entered in the system for up to the last 120 days are displayed, in place of the list of all unallocated payments, credits or adjustments. Tick Recent Transactions to switch back to the Unallocated Transactions list.

Only the transactions your security clearance allows you to access are listed here. For example, if you are only permitted to edit transactions that are less than 30 days old, then only payments or credits or adjustments that are less than 30 days old are listed here.

Navigating The Transaction List

Most recent transactions are displayed first. To view earlier transactions, press the More button. To view more current transactions again, press the Up button.

Automatic payment allocations

Transactions may be allocated amounts of money either manually or automatically.

Press the Automatic button to automatically allocate the payment. The earliest invoice/transaction in the system will be paid first, then the next and so on, until all transactions have been paid or there is no money left to pay further invoices/transactions. If a transaction is entitled to a discount, this will be calculated and placed in the discount column.

Manual payment allocations

This allows you to allocate specific amounts of money against specific transactions. If a discount entitlement is detected, CAPITAL will add this to the Discount amount. Discounts may only be entered under the discount column.

Click on the appropriate cell under the Allocate column and begin typing the amount of money to pay.

You can also use the mouse to click on the small clipboard picture under the P (payment) column. This will mark the transaction as paid if sufficient funds are available to do so.

If an account is entitled to a discount that has not been fully allocated to it, the unallocated portion of that discount will be 'thrown away'. (You will not be claiming it.)

Because CAPITAL must calculate discounts, transaction by transaction, and since most suppliers will calculate their discount entitlement on their total amount outstanding, a small rounding difference may result. When doing automatic payment allocations CAPITAL will attempt to compensate for this as best it can. In most situations CAPITAL will entitle you to your discount even if you pay up to 5 cents less than what you should. Under certain circumstances CAPITAL will also alter the discount by up to 5 cents in order to neatly balance the transaction.

You can change this amount of 'tolerance' by altering the Allow Discount Within field setting in INSTALLATION Workshop.

If a payment is not allocated against any invoices/transactions, an unpaid transaction is created. The words NO ALLOC will appear in place of an invoice/transaction number for this type of transaction. This transaction can be thought of as an automatic prepayment or unassigned credit. Do this if you know you are entitled to a credit, but do not yet know what you should be offsetting the credit against.

For various reasons it may be necessary to only partly allocate a payment to a series of invoices. If this is the case, only the portion actually allocated will appear under the Allocation column.

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