Record payments you received outside the system (checks, cash, bank transfers, payment apps), including check numbers, backdating, partial payments and what happens when a customer pays too much. Then the credit side: prepayments, applying and issuing credit, and credit balances that arrive with an import.
Record an offline payment
- Amount: prefilled with the remaining balance; change it for a partial payment or an overpayment.
- Payment Method: Cash, Check, Bank Transfer, Other, or one of your own methods (Zelle, Venmo and so on).
- Reference *(optional)*: Check number for a check, Confirmation number or memo for a payment app, Other or Bank Transfer.
- Payment Date: defaults to today; backdate it for a check received earlier.
The invoice status, amount paid and balance update right away, and the payment posts to your books as cash received, A/R reduced.
Under the Cash Discount Program the modal shows both prices for the method you picked ("Check price $150.00 · card price $153.45") and never changes an amount you typed. Cash, check, bank transfer and your own methods are measured against the cash price; a card against the invoice total. A check for exactly the card price asks before anything is saved: Accept it as payment in full (no discount, no credit; preselected for customers without a rate card) or Give the discount and keep the difference as account credit (preselected for rate-card customers).
You can't record a payment on a draft (send it first) or a voided invoice.
Check numbers and reference numbers
The reference is free text: a check number, wire confirmation, money-order number, whatever your bookkeeping needs.
Payment date (backdating)
Payment Date is the day the money arrived, not the day you typed it in. It defaults to today, accepts any past date and refuses a future one. It sets the date on the Payments tab, the invoice PDF and the receipt, and the day the accounting entry posts, so your books match when the money actually came in. That is the QuickBooks Online / Xero convention.
Partial payments
If you record less than the balance, the invoice becomes Partial. It keeps its due date (it can still go overdue and still get reminders, because money is still owed), and it becomes Paid when the balance reaches zero. Lists show "$X still due" under the amount.
Under the Cash Discount Program a partial check doesn't earn the discount yet: it is applied at face value, the invoice keeps showing both prices for the rest, and the check that completes the cash price earns it.
"Partial" always means not enough, never too much. A payment short of the balance is never called even.
Overpayments: credit, or call it even
Record more than the invoice asks for and it settles: status Paid, balance $0, never negative. What happens to the extra depends on how much it is:
| Paid over the price | What happens |
|---|---|
| 1¢ to 99¢ | Collect Payment asks: Call it even (preselected) or Keep $0.04 as account credit. A customer who rounds a $479.96 check up to $480.00 usually means keep the change. |
| $1.00 or more | Saved as account credit automatically, and the confirmation says so ("$115.00 added to Dana Miller's account credit"). |
"The price" is the cash price when the customer paid by cash, check, bank transfer or one of your own methods under the Cash Discount Program, and the invoice balance otherwise. A $300 check on a $185 cash / $196 card invoice is $115 of credit, not $104.
Call it even closes the invoice with no credit. Under the Cash Discount Program it records a slightly smaller discount (a $480.00 check on a $479.96 check price shows "Cash discount applied −$11.01" instead of −$11.05). Without the program the invoice shows the few cents paid over its total, and if you keep books in PortaPro they post to Cash Over and Short.
There is no "Overpaid" status: the invoice caps at Paid, and extra money is either the customer's credit (the "$X credit on file" chip on their Financial tab) or a few cents you called even.
Credit applies to the customer's future invoices automatically, oldest credit first, when each one is issued (sent, marked sent, or created straight to Open). To use it now, open the target invoice and choose Apply Credit → Use available credit. It shows to the customer as a Credit Memo line.
Prepayments
Common in seasonal work: a customer pays for the season up front.
Each future invoice applies the credit before it goes out, so the customer sees a reduced or $0 amount due until it is used up.
What a prepayment earns under the Cash Discount Program: credit funded by check, cash or ACH earns the cash price on each invoice it fully covers; a credit that covers only part of an invoice is applied at face value. Credit funded by a card pays the listed price, and so does credit with no funding method (goodwill, a dispute settlement). An overpayment takes the method of the payment that produced it, which is why Issue Credit only asks for Prepayment received.
Applying, issuing and writing off credit
Apply Credit on an open or partial invoice offers three modes:
| Mode | What it does | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Use available credit | Spends the customer's existing credit on this invoice | They prepaid or overpaid earlier |
| Credit note | Issues a new credit against this invoice (reason required) | A billing correction or dispute settlement |
| Write off | Writes the balance off as uncollectible (reason required) | Bad debt |
All three record a payment-style row instead of editing line items, so the invoice total stays intact. Customers never see "write-off": it prints as Adjustment, and credit notes print as Credit Memo. Issue Credit on the customer's Financial tab credits their *balance* rather than one invoice, like a QuickBooks credit memo.
Credit balances that arrive with an import
When you import customers, the opening balance column carries their history:
For credits the import also asks how the prepayment was made: a prepaid_via column per customer (check, cash, ACH / bank transfer / wire, card, or a label like Zelle), or the Billing & Tax step's How were these prepayments made? answer for the rest. Not sure / mixed never blocks the import; that credit pays the listed price. Rolling back an import deletes unused credits and refuses if one was already applied.
Credit lines on the invoice
Receipts
Open the invoice → Send Receipt. It lists every settled payment with date, method, reference and amount, plus any balance left; applied credits show as Credit Memo lines. Card payments through Stripe send a receipt automatically; offline payments don't, so you send those deliberately.
Reversing a payment
Recorded one in error? Reverse it from the customer's Payments tab or the invoice. The balance and status recalculate, and the reversal is kept in the history. To fix a wrong check number or date, reverse and record it again.
Refunding a card payment, all or part of it
A card payment taken through PortaPro gives two choices under Reverse:
After a partial refund the payment reads Partial Refund and a new row, "Kept after a partial refund", holds what the customer kept, so the invoice only reopens by the amount refunded. Refund again later and that row updates. A refund made in the Stripe dashboard is recorded the same way. QuickBooks Online and Xero follow on their own: the original payment comes off and the kept amount goes across as its own payment.
Troubleshooting
The customer overpaid but I don't see a credit. If it was under $1.00, check whether it was called even. Otherwise the excess only becomes credit when it is recorded on one payment that exceeds the balance; if it was split across two invoices, it is already applied.
A credit didn't apply to the new invoice. Credits apply when an invoice is issued, not while it is a draft. Send it, or use Apply Credit → Use available credit.
Apply Credit says the amount exceeds the remaining balance. Credit never makes an invoice negative. Apply the smaller amount; the rest stays for the next invoice.
The customer prepaid by check but the credit paid the card price. Check what funded it. Credit issued as goodwill or a dispute, or imported as Not sure / mixed, pays the listed price by design. If it really came from a check, issue the remaining balance as a Prepayment received credit funded by Check.