Payment schedules

A payment schedule splits one sale into several payments — for example a deposit, progress payments and a final payment. Each payment is issued as its own normal invoice, and your customer gets one Payment Schedule document that ties them together. The schedule itself never posts to your books; only the invoices it issues do.

Find it under Sales → Payment Schedules. Schedule numbers look like PS-0001.

Create a payment schedule

1. Go to Sales → Payment Schedules and click New Payment Schedule (or, from a project, Add to Project → New Payment Schedule).

2. Fill in the Invoice Details — customer, reference, Issue Date, currency and tax mode — and the Line Items for the whole sale, just like an invoice.

3. In the Payments card, split the total:

   • Quick start: 50 / 50, 30 / 30 / 40 or Deposit + 3 Monthly.
   • Split by % or Amount.
   • Give each payment a name (e.g. Deposit) and a Due Date. Use Add Payment for more rows. The line under the table tells you when the split is fully allocated.

4. Choose When to issue each invoice:

   Option	What happens
   Issue each one [7] days before it’s due	Payments due soon are invoiced now; the rest are issued automatically, the chosen number of days (0–365) before each is due. Each counts as sales when it’s issued — suits deposits and work done in stages.
   Issue them all now	Every invoice is issued today, each with its own due date. The full amount counts as sales now — suits a sale that’s complete but paid over time.
   I’ll issue each one when the work is done	Nothing is invoiced automatically. Press Issue Now on a payment when that stage is finished — the due dates are your plan.

   With the first option, Email each invoice to the customer when it’s issued (on by default) emails each automatically issued invoice.

5. Click Create Payment Schedule. Any payment that’s already due is invoiced straight away.

Rules:

• 2 to 60 payments.
• Percentages must add up to 100%; amounts must add up to the total exactly. The payments always add up to the total to the cent — rounding goes to the last payment.
• Due dates can’t be before the schedule’s issue date and must be in order.
• Tracked inventory items can’t be on a schedule — invoice them directly.

How the invoices are issued

Each payment becomes an invoice that is created and approved automatically — it posts to your books the moment it’s issued. Its lines read like “Website build — Deposit (30%)” and its reference is the schedule number (plus your reference).

• Automatically (the “days before due” option): AccountFUN issues each invoice shortly after midnight (your organization’s time zone) on its issue date.
• By hand: Issue Now on a payment (on the schedule page or the project’s Payment Schedules card) invoices it immediately.
• Never re-issued automatically: if you void a payment’s invoice, its row shows Issue Again; if you delete it, Issue Now comes back. Either way you decide when to issue it again.

The invoices together add up exactly to the schedule’s subtotal, tax and total. With Tax Exclusive pricing a single invoice can differ from its planned amount by a cent; the final invoice evens it out.

Not every invoice is emailed for you

Only invoices that are issued later, automatically are emailed (when the email switch is on). Invoices issued straight away — the deposit when you create the schedule, Issue them all now, Issue Now / Issue Again, and the “when the work is done” option — are not. Send those from the invoice as usual.

Statuses

Schedule	Meaning
Active	Running normally
Overdue	At least one issued invoice is past due and unpaid
Paid	Every payment has been invoiced and paid in full
Cancelled	No more invoices will be issued

Payment	Meaning
Scheduled	Not invoiced yet (shows Not invoiced yet on “when the work is done” schedules)
Due	Invoiced, unpaid, not yet past due
Overdue	Invoiced, unpaid, past its due date
Paid	Its invoice is fully paid
Cancelled	Never invoiced, and the schedule was cancelled

The schedule page shows Total, Paid, Invoiced, Unpaid and Still to Come, the Payments table, and What’s Being Invoiced.

Send it to your customer

Use Send on the schedule page:

• Print / PDF — the schedule with each payment’s share, due date, invoice, status, amount and what’s been paid.
• Email Payment Schedule — emails the PDF with a View payment schedule button. Edit the wording under Settings → Email Templates → Payment Schedule.
• Public Link — a page your customer can open without logging in. It lists Invoices ready to pay, each with a View & pay link to that invoice.

Each payment’s invoice is a normal invoice: reminders, online payments (Pay Now) and aging all work on it. On the invoice, the details show the Payment Schedule it belongs to (e.g. Deposit · payment 1 of 3), and the PDF adds a short block under Balance Due with the Schedule Total, Paid So Far and Remaining After This Invoice.

Settlement currency

If the customer settles in another currency, each issued invoice — including that schedule block — is shown in the settlement currency. The schedule document itself stays in the schedule’s currency.

Edit or cancel

Edit lets you change the payments that haven’t been invoiced yet — rename, re-amount, re-date, remove or add them (Split Evenly spreads what’s left). Invoiced payments are locked. The editable payments must add up to what’s left to schedule. You can also change the Reference (used on invoices issued from now on) and, for automatic schedules, the days-before and email settings.

Line items, customer, currency and the schedule date can’t change once it’s created — for a change of scope, create a separate invoice or a new schedule.

Cancel Schedule stops any further invoices. Invoices already issued stay as they are (void them separately if needed); payments never invoiced show Cancelled. Cancelling can’t be undone.

Fixing an issued invoice

An invoice issued from a schedule can’t be reverted to draft. To correct it, void it and use Issue Again on the schedule.

Tax rates used on a schedule count as “in use”, so they can’t be edited or deleted while the schedule exists.

Projects

Add a schedule to a project and every invoice it issues joins the project automatically. To move a schedule, use … → Link to Project / Change Project on the schedule — its invoices move with it. The project shows payments not yet invoiced as Scheduled.

Who can use payment schedules

You need the Payment Schedules permission to see them. Creating, editing and Issue Now also need Create Drafts and Approve Documents (because due payments are invoiced and approved straight away); cancelling needs Void Documents. See Roles & permissions.

Worked example: deposit, progress, final

Northwind sells Blue Harbor a website for $10,000 (excl. tax).

1. New Payment Schedule for Blue Harbor, issued Oct 1, with one line Website build $10,000.
2. Pick 30 / 30 / 40 and name the payments Deposit (due Oct 1), Design sign-off (due Nov 1) and Launch (due Dec 1).
3. Keep Issue each one 7 days before it’s due with emails on.
4. Create Payment Schedule. The deposit invoice ($3,000) is issued straight away — send it from the invoice.
5. On Oct 25 AccountFUN issues and emails the Design sign-off invoice ($3,000); on Nov 24, the Launch invoice ($4,000).
6. Send → Email Payment Schedule so Blue Harbor can follow every payment from one link.