Office: Installment Payments

What is an Installment Payment?

An  Installment Payment allows your Contacts to pay an Invoice one portion at a time rather than needing to pay the entire bill all at once. You can add an Installment option to Invoices, Invoice Generators, and Estimates.

CLICK HERE to learn about Invoices

How do I set up an Installment for Invoices?

To get started, navigate to Office > Invoices. Click the +Add Invoice button.

Fill out the fields to produce your Invoice.

When you get to Payment Settings you will see an option to Allow Partial Payment. Check the box to bring up Installments.

Then click the + to add your first installment.

You can offer two forms of Installment Payments: Percent and Fixed.

Percent: 

A Percent Installment allows you to choose how much of the Invoice the Contact needs to pay by a certain date or once a certain amount of time has gone by.

Title: Give a name to this Installment.

Amount: This number is a percent of the total invoice. For example, if you enter 10 the Contact will be paying 10% of the Invoice in this Installment.

Due Date: You can select a Relative due date or a Fixed due date. For a Relative due date, you will enter how long the Contact has to pay this installment. For example, if you enter 5 and select Days from the dropdown, this Installment will be due 5 days after the Contact receives the Invoice. A Fixed due date requires you to enter a date. That date is when the Installment will be due.

You can configure Automations and set up reminder emails by clicking the icons on the bottom. 

CLICK HERE to learn about Automations

Once you are done click Save to add the Installment. Clicking the trash can icon will delete the Installment. After saving your Installment will show up and you will have the option to add another Percent Installment.

Fixed: 

A Fixed Installment allows you to choose a specific amount of the Invoice that is due by a certain date or once a certain amount of time has gone by.

Title: Give a name to this Installment.

Amount: How much is due in this Installment. 

Due Date: You can select a Relative due date or a Fixed due date. For a Relative due date, you will enter how long the Contact has to pay this installment. For example, if you enter 5 and select Days from the dropdown, this Installment will be due 5 days after the Contact receives the Invoice. A Fixed due date requires you to enter a date. That date is when the Installment will be due.

You can configure Automations and set up reminder emails by clicking the icons on the bottom. 

CLICK HERE to learn about Automations

Once you are done click Save to add the Installment. Clicking the trash can icon will delete the Installment. After saving your Installment will show up and you will have the option to add another Fixed Installment.

After you are done setting up your Installments you can continue to fill out the rest of the info for your Invoice until you are ready to Save it.

Editing an Invoice when Partially Paid

Once you have received Partial Payments there may be a time when you need to EDIT the invoice.  This can be done by clicking Edit in the options menu of the invoice.  

A popup window will appear to confirm that the invoice is Partially Paid and to use installment Payments for the new balance you will need to re-configure the remaining Partial Payment amounts.

Overpaid Invoices

If you have received partial payments and then edit the total of the invoice, it will set the invoice as draft.  If the amount paid is more than the new total the invoice will have a new status of 'Overpaid'.

How do I set up an Installment for Estimates?

Navigate to Office > Estimates. Click the +Add Estimate button.

Fill out the fields to produce your Estimate. Since Estimates and Invoices are very similar, you can follow the steps above to set up your Installment Payment.

While setting up your Installment Payment on the Estimate you will notice one key difference between Invoice Installments and Estimate Installments. The due date for the Installment only allows for a relative due date for an Estimate.

The  relative due date of an Installment must fit within the Converted Invoice Relative Due Date. For example, if I set my Converted Invoice Relative Due Date to 5 days I am saying that 5 days after this Estimate has been converted to an Invoice it will be due. When I set up my Installment Due Date it cannot be due more than 5 days later or it will be due after the full payment of the Invoice was due.

You can see that if I set my Converted Invoice Relative Due Date to 5 days and an Installment due date to 9 days it will not allow me to save the Estimate and will give me an error.

CLICK HERE to learn about Estimates

How do I set up an Installment for an Invoice Generator?

You will follow the same steps we took for Invoices and Estimates. All Invoice Generators will have a relative due date, just like Estimates, since they do not have fixed due dates.

CLICK HERE to learn about Accumulating Generators

CLICK HERE to learn about Recurring Generators

CLICK HERE to learn about On-Demand Invoice Generators