I hope I have the right topic forum. I've run into a problem thats causing a migraine and an ever-asking boss (may be related).

Charging an invoice isn't the hard part. That's simple math as far as I can tell.

But it seems taking a payment on a late invoice with an interest charge gets complicated. If I take a payment that includes the interest charge the balance goes negative.

I can't tell if I am looking up the interest incorrectly or if I'm looking at the wrong balance.

Is there a standard practice for both cases? I'm not having much luck with the google search.

Thanks

Hi Chris

First off.....nice to talk with someone who is a neighbor!

I am first and foremost a CPA, so I think I am qualified to answer the question.

I'm going to need a little more information tho.

Are you talking about interest charges like finance charges, e.g. mortgage company? or are you talking about late charges, e.g. 1/2% late fee if the invoice is paid late?

In either case, both of these charges need to be booked in your system if you are not booking the interest charge/finance charge/late charge then yes you would end up with a credit balance or as you say a negative balance.

Let me know if you wanted to maybe just PM me on this subject and I will be glad to help you.

Tina Marie

Yay for locals!

I'm talking about charging late fees for customers with NET terms. I have customers who are notoriously late in their payments.

How would I book the charges? I can figure out in a calc field, but it looks like my approach is too simple for what I'm trying to get.

I think the problem I was running into was making everything a calculation. I ran into a circular definition every time.

I finally wrote a script to step through each payment line item and used temp fields to look at the previous lineitem to determine the correct amount. So far it seems to be working.