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Adding a Retainer/Deposit/Advance Pre-Payment

These payments are not applied to unpaid invoices; instead, they are saved to the client's retainer balance and applied to future invoices.


These payments are not applied to unpaid invoices; instead, they are saved to the client's retainer balance and applied to future invoices.

Client payments should always be proofed before being posted. The client payments proof list shows the payments you’ve added, letting you check for errors. Once a client payment is posted, it can’t be changed, unless the payment is unposted. Proofing avoids these time-consuming fixes. 📍See examples: #70643102 (media), 69188 (mixed), 19453 (ACH)

🔹To add a client's payment, open the Client Payments window, click the Add toolbar button, then click on the Client Payment option.

HERE'S HOW IT WORKS

• Splitting payments between clients.
• Deposit batch
• Online payments
• Write offs.
• A media buy's billing amount can be changed on the fly, which doesn't affect the media order.
• A staff member with only access to their own account can’t see other staff files,
• Every staffer can change their home address, phone number, email settings, staff photo, signature, and signature text for emails.


👉 One client's payment can be applied to a different client account. The range of dates (work dates for time, invoice dates for costs) can be a week, a month, a quarter, or any period of time. When you tab out of the date field, Clients & Profits will select the job's unbilled costs that were added during the time period, sorting them chronologically (oldest first) by task.

Listen to a podcast about how to get the most out of Clients & Profits's most useful project management features (5:06 mins)

TO ADD A RETAINER/DEPOSIT/ADVANCE PRE-PAYMENT

1️⃣ From the Client Payments window, click the Add toolbar button, then click on the Retainer/Deposit/Advance option

2️⃣ Enter the first few letters of the paid by client name, then press Tab to look up the client's account info.

3️⃣ Enter the payment amount from the client's check, wire, ACH, or other online payment.

Enter the payment amount, less any discount. This amount is entered from the client’s check. It is the amount the client has paid for their invoices. A client payment can be for more or less than their unpaid balance. If the client is overpaying their account, the full amount should be applied to an invoice -- giving it a credit balance. (This credit balance can be applied later to new invoices.) If the client is paying less than their balance due, the amount can be applied to any unpaid invoices. The invoices still not paid will appear on the client’s aging report.

4️⃣ If you want the payment amount to be automatically allocated to the client's invoices, oldest to newest, click the Auto-allocate checkbox.

Otherwise, you'll need to click on the specific invoices you want to pay off with this payment. If you use the auto-allocate option and the client’s balance was paid in full, all of its invoices will be paid off automatically. The auto-allocate option applies the payment amount to the client’s oldest invoices first, then works forward. The actual amounts applied to invoices can be modified before the payment is saved.

5️⃣ Enter the client payment's basic details:

✍️ Check date This is the date that appears on the printed invoice, as well as the journal entries in the General Ledger. The invoice date and the accounting period can be different, for flexibility. This means an invoice can be dated in this month, but the invoice can be posted to next month's financial period.

✍️ Period This is the date that appears on the printed invoice, as well as the journal entries in the General Ledger. The invoice date and the accounting period can be different, for flexibility. This means an invoice can be dated in this month, but the invoice can be posted to next month's financial period.

✍️ Cash dGL The debit G/L number is used to track cash receipts on the financial statements. The account number is copied from the “cash account” in the G/L preferences, but can be changed. Your default checking account is entered automatically. If you’re depositing this payment into a different checking (or savings) account, enter that account’s number instead.

✍️ Description The payment’s description appears on client payment reports. It is also copied to journal entries posted into the General Ledger. It is entered automatically as “payment on account”, but can be changed.

6️⃣ Enter the client payment's bank details:

✍️ Check# The check number appears on a check, and is entered for reference. (You can find client payments by check number.) Both should be entered from the information printed on the check.

✍️ Bank ID This is the date that appears on the printed invoice, as well as the journal entries in the General Ledger. The invoice date and the accounting period can be different, for flexibility. This means an invoice can be dated in this month, but the invoice can be posted to next month's financial period.

✍️ Ck date The check date is the date on which the client made the payment.

✍️ Deposit batch Deposits can be grouped together by batch number. If your bank deposit slips have a pre-printed number, use it; if not, enter the date. The group of deposits can then be shown on the Bank Reconciliation as a single batch total.

7️⃣ Enter the retainer/depost/advance cGL# to account for the liability.

The retainer’s cGL and dGL are copied from the client’s retainer schedule, but can be changed. A special A/R account can be created for tracking retainer receivables, to keep them separate on financial statements. Likewise, a special “deposits/advances” liability account can be created to track retainer billings. When a retainer invoice is posted, it will post debit and credit journal entries to these accounts.

👉 Accounts with credit invoices In cases where you have an invoice and its credit (i.e., one with a balance and the other with a credit for the same amount) you can easily clear both from the client account by entering payments to each invoice. Enter a positive payment amount to the first invoice, then a negative payment amount to the second invoice.

8️⃣ When everything looks good, click Save.

Once the client payment is saved, it must be proofed & posted. Posting makes the payment permanent, updating the client's retainer account balance and making the General Ledger journal entries.

To see a client’s retainer schedule

The Retainer Schedule window shows the client’s retainer history, including which retainers have been billed so far. The status checkbox indicates which retainers have been billed, including the date and invoice number. Billed retainers can’t be changed. Unused retainer is the amount that can be applied as payments to the client’s upcoming invoices. Unpaid retainers shows the balance of the client’s unpaid retainer billings. You can use this amount to track if the client has paid the retainer invoices (you may not want to apply retainers to new invoices unless they’ve been paid already).

1 Choose My > My Clients.

2 Click on the Retainers link.


🎯 Financial statements can be printed for previous periods, even if the period is locked, by choosing the period from the drop-down menu. Team member will be able to see a preview of the file when they click on the topic in homeBase, as well as opening the file directly if they double-click on it. File attachments are saved forever. Files on topics are saved in your C&P cloud database, not saved to your asset server.

TIPS

📌 You can't include purchase orders or media orders on cost/WIP/phase billings.

FAQs

💬 What do I do if the online payment has no check number? If needed, enter a different billing amount or hours for each of the job's costs. Before the invoice is saved you have a chance to tweak a billing amount for one or more job costs. Changing the billing amount will only affect the client's invoice -- the gross amount on the cost is unaffected.

💬 If I roll-up costs into tasks on a WIP billing, can I still show client cost-by-cost detail? Yes. You can attach a detailed list of billed costs to the invoice by printing the Invoice Detail Report at the same time you print the invoice.


SEE ALSO
Splitting Client Payments
Media FAQs

EXPLAINERS
Media Vendors