# Introduction - Payments Received

A payment received records what a customer has paid you and which invoices it settles.

**Video coming soon:** Recording what arrived, and allocating it across the invoices it clears.

It is the end of the sales chain and the only step in it that touches no stock at all. Recording one here keeps the customer's balance honest without anybody leaving Inventory to do it.

![The Customer Payments screen, subtitled Manage and track all customer payments across your organization, and its Payment action. Columns read Payment Date, Payment Number, Reference Number, Customer, Invoice Number, Payment Mode, Amount and Status. Payment modes include Bank Transfer, BACS, Direct Debit, Cheque, CHAPS, Cash, Debit Card and Credit Card, against UK customers including Northgate Water Utilities, Redheugh Manufacturing and Dartmoor Aggregates.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/inventory/payments-received/payments-list.png)

*Each payment names the invoice it settles and how the money arrived.*

> **Note:**
>
> **The menu and the page use different names**
>
> The sidebar calls this **Payments Received** and the screen heading reads **Customer Payments**. They are the same module, and both names appear in the product today.

## A payment and an allocation are two things

This distinction answers most awkward receipts questions.

- **The payment** (what arrived): An amount, a date, a mode and the account it landed in. This is a fact about your bank.
- **The allocation** (what it settles): Which invoices that money is applied against, and how much of each. This is a decision, and it can be changed later.

A payment can arrive with no allocation at all: money on account, sitting as a credit against the customer until somebody decides which invoices it clears.

## Payment modes

The mode is what the list is filtered by when somebody asks how a customer usually pays. Bank Transfer, BACS, CHAPS and Direct Debit sit alongside Cheque, Cash and card.

![A customer payment record showing its number, date, mode and amount, the customer, the invoice it has been applied to, and an activity panel at the right.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/inventory/payments-received/payment-detail.png)

*The payment record and its allocation, side by side. Changing the second leaves the first untouched.*

> **Tip:**
>
> **Record as it arrives, allocate when you know**
>
> Waiting until you can work out which invoices a lump sum covers is how a fortnight of receipts goes unrecorded. The bank fact and the bookkeeping decision do not have to happen on the same day.