Applying Credits to Customer Invoices

After you have created a credit for your customer, due to a return or giving them a miscellaneous refund, you can now apply the credit to any unpaid customer invoices, which reduces the amount your customer owes. Applying a credit to an invoice is different than applying a customer payment to an invoice, where you receive money directly from the customer. For more info, see Receiving a Customer Payment.

Here’s what you need to know about applying a credit to a customer invoice:

• You can add a credit for one customer at a time.
• You must apply the full amount of a credit to any invoices the customer has. This means the credit(s) you apply should be less than or equal to the invoice amounts. For example, if a customer has a credit of $5, they must have at least $5 owed in their invoices in order to apply the credit.
• There is a progress bar along the bottom to show how much credit is remaining, if you are splitting up the credit among different invoices or invoice lines.

To apply a customer credit in Patriot Software

• Accounting > Receivables > Credits
• Select the customer’s name with an unpaid invoice that you want to apply the credit.
• If this customer has more than one credit available, choose the credit you want to use.
• If their credit is equal to or more than the invoice amount, click “Credit in Full” at the end of the row to apply the credit to the entire invoice.
• If the amount of the credit is less than the invoice amount, click “Apply Credit” to apply the credit to a portion of the invoice. Enter the amount of the remaining credit on each invoice line and click either “Credit Remaining,” or “Credit Item in Full,” depending whether the invoice amount is more or less than the credit.
• You can also apply the credit to more than one line item on an invoice, or more than one invoice, as long as you apply the total amount of the credit among the invoices. Click “Show Details” to see the invoice line detail to split up the credit amounts.
• When you are finished applying the credit, click “Save Customer Credit.”

When viewing a customer’s credit detail, this credit’s status will change to “Applied” once it has been applied to an invoice.