A Customer Deposit is a payment taken from the customer which can later be used to pay toward sales invoices. A Customer Deposit is taken during the Sales Order entry process and results as a Deposit type document in the customer's account/aging. The deposit is not linked to a specific sales order or sales invoice.
The process of creating a Customer Deposit is from the Totals screen of a Sales Order. From the Actions menu, choose "Take a Deposit". The Customer Payment screen appears, though the detail grid does not list a sales order. This is correct, as the payment being taken is not for a specific order. Proceed to specify the Type, Reference, and the Amount for which you are accepting the deposit. If you will be taking a credit card payment, proceed with the steps for processing the payment, noting that "Preauthorization" is not an option for processing a deposit. Complete the process of taking a deposit by selecting "Post This Payment" from the Actions menu.
The Take a Deposit feature can also be used to facilitate the processing of "multiple payments" for a single sales order. The Sales Order payment interface allows for a single "payment", but a deposit does not get saved as a payment against the sales orders. Thus you can take a split payment such as cash and check, check and credit card, or separate credit cards.
- The first transaction payment must be the "Take a Deposit" option. Specify the Amount and then Post the payment.
- Then select the "Take a Payment" option. The Amount value in the left vertical grid and the Payment Amount in the document horizontal will default to the full amount of the payment expected for the document. Edit the value in both fields to be that for the remaining balance of the order after the deposit. Proceed to process and Post this payment.
- After the resulting invoice has been posted, the customer aging will indicated the invoice as having been partially paid with a balance. The aging will also included the "Deposit". The AR staff can now use Credit Application Only option In Customer Payment to apply the Deposit to the Invoice.