# Introduction - Vendor Payments

A vendor payment records money leaving to settle bills.

**Video coming soon:** Paying a supplier, and deciding which bills that money clears.

Like customer payments, the money and the allocation are two separate things, which is what lets you pay a supplier a round figure covering six invoices and still know exactly which ones are now clear.

![The Vendor Payments screen listing twenty-eight payments with columns for Date, Payment #, Vendor, Bill#, Payment Mode, Amount, Status, Amount Allocated and Unused Amount. Payment modes read CHAPS, BACS, Bank Transfer and Cheque. Most rows are Draft with 0.00 allocated and the full amount unused; a Paid row at the foot has its whole amount allocated and nothing unused.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/vendor-payments/vendor-payment-list.png)

*Amount Allocated and Unused Amount always add up to Amount. Unused is money not yet matched to a bill.*

## Payment and allocation

- **Payment** (the money): The amount, the date and which account it left from. This is what your bank reconciliation matches.
- **Allocation** (the matching): How that amount is split across open bills. Editable afterwards without touching the payment.
- **Prepayment** (the remainder): Money sent that has not been matched to a bill yet. It sits against the vendor.

> **Note:**
>
> **This is why a bill can look unpaid**
>
> The payment exists, your bank is right, and the bill still shows a balance. That is an allocation problem, not a missing payment.

## Before you send money

Three checks, in this order, on the vendor's transactions tab. Each one can reduce or remove the payment entirely, and none of them happens automatically.

1. **Unused credits**: Apply them first
2. **Prepayments**: Match before sending more
3. **Disputed bills**: Credit the disputed part
4. **Then pay**: What is genuinely due