# Record a Customer Payment

Record from the module rather than from an invoice whenever the payment does not map onto exactly one invoice.

That is more often than you would think, and doing it this way keeps your bank reconciliation matching one line to one payment.

## Record it

- **Open the form**

  Go to **Sales > Customer Payments > New**.

  ![The Create Customer Payment form. Payment Details holds Payment Amount, Bank Charges, Payment Number, Payment Date, Payment Method, Deposit To and Reference Number. An Apply to Invoices panel below reads: Select a customer to load their unpaid invoices.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/customer-payments/new-customer-payment-form.png)
- **Pick the customer**

  Their open invoices appear below, oldest first, ready to allocate against.
- **Enter the amount and date**

  The date is when the money arrived, which is what your reconciliation and a cash-basis VAT return use.
- **Choose the deposit account and method**

  Which bank or cash account it landed in, and how it was paid. Both appear on your reconciliation.
- **Allocate across invoices**

  Tick the invoices it pays. Allocate less than the full amount and the rest stays unapplied.
- **Save**

  Invoices that reach a zero balance move to Paid automatically.

> **Tip:**
>
> **Round-number payments**
>
> When a customer pays a lump sum against several invoices, record one payment and allocate it across all of them. Splitting it into several payments makes your bank reconciliation harder for no benefit.

## Field reference

| Field | Required | What it does |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Customer | Yes | Sets the currency and lists the invoices available to allocate against. |
| Amount | Yes | What arrived. Not what any invoice says. |
| Payment date | Yes | When money arrived. Used by reconciliation and by a cash-basis VAT return. |
| Deposit account | Yes | The bank or cash account it landed in. |
| Payment method | No | Transfer, card, cash, cheque. Useful for filtering later. |
| Reference | No | Their transfer reference. The fastest way to match a bank line. |
| Notes | No | Internal. Not shown to the customer. |

## Bank feeds and imports

If payments arrive as a bank statement rather than one at a time, import the statement and match lines to customers, then allocate. The import creates the payments; allocation is still yours to do, because only you know which invoice a round number was meant for.

- A matched line becomes a payment with the bank reference already filled in.
- An unmatched line stays unmatched rather than guessing. Guessing here is worse than doing nothing.
- Imported payments can be left unapplied and allocated in a single pass later.