Processing Payment

[mlungu]

Hi

 

We're having a look at blesta. So far impressed with its look and initial ease of use. However, the most important feature we're looking for appears not to be there. I hope I am wrong though.

 

Almost all of our payments are by means of EFT to us. When that payment comes in we process it manually (would love to automate that but you try and get a customer to use the correct reference..........). However, it seems like you have to process this against an invoice in Blesta. That's the precise reason we have started looking for another system. Clients typically lump together a number of invoices, or even worse pay us an arbitrary amount because they couldn't be bothered to check the exact amount they owe us. The amount paid could easily be more than what they owe us, or it could be less. Etc. We then have to manually figure out to which invoices this must be applied which is a nightmare.

 

We want the ability to simply have a running total. Payments are applied against an account rather than against an invoice. That would cut out all the manual work we currently have to do.

 

Am I correct that this is not possible with Blesta? If I am wrong, please let me know how to do this. If I am right - would it not make a lot more sense?

 

Cheers

 

Theo

[Michael]

What's EFT mate, if it's a gateway, I recommend you open a feature request with a url to the API, if you need it fast you could hire Eric who can build it for a cheap price.

[flangefrog]

Would something like this work? When you add a payment manually, it will automatically apply the payment to the invoices, oldest first. It will check any invoices with an amount above zero.

E.g. if the client has three invoices - $30 and $10, and $20 and paid $37, $30 will be paid to the first invoice and $7 to the second. The third invoice will be unpaid.

 

Note: this doesn't actually add any real functionality to Blesta, it will just make it easier to apply the payments without having to work out manually how much to apply to each invoice.

 

/app/views/admin/default/admin_clients_recordpayment.pdt

 

After line 79

$(document).ready(function() {

 add:

$("#amount").change(function() {
    amountRemaining = Math.max($(this).val(), 0);
    if (!isNaN(amountRemaining)) {
        $("#invoices_to_pay").find("tr").not(".heading_row").each(function() {
            checkBoxElement = $(this).find("input[name^=\'invoice_id\']");
            applyAmountElement = $(this).find("input[name^=\'applyamount\']");
            amountDueElement = applyAmountElement.parent().next();
            amountDue = Number(amountDueElement.text().substr(1).replace(/[^0-9\.]+/g, ""));
            applyAmount = Math.min(amountRemaining, amountDue);
            amountRemaining = (amountRemaining - applyAmount).toFixed(2);
            applyAmountElement.val(applyAmount);
            checkBoxElement.prop("checked", applyAmount > 0);
            if (!amountRemaining)
                return false;
        });
    }
});

If you want the calc to run while typing, change line 80 to:

$("#amount").on("input",function() {

Just be aware that this is unsupported or buggy on older browsers.

[Max]

>We want the ability to simply have a running total.

 

Wouldn't that complicates things when sending payment reminders?

 

 

Note that while you do have to record it against some invoice in Blesta, it is not a problem if it is a partial payment.

And you can also record a payment that is greater than the invoices you apply it to, in which case it will be recorded as credit to be applied to future invoices.

 

 

after:

 

 

 

 

 

What's EFT mate, if it's a gateway, I recommend you open a feature request with a url to the API, if you need it fast you could hire Eric who can build it for a cheap price.

 

That is a wire transfer that the customer sends from his bank account to your bank account using Internet banking.

Popular in countries were credit cards are not common, where cards are restricted to offline use, and/or where people simply do not feel comfortable supplying their card details to some random shop online (quite a significant part of continental Europe)

There do are gateways that can process those for you (e.g. Multisafepay), but most companies prefer to receive the payments in their own bank account, and process them manually by looking at their bank statement.

Or semi-manually by exporting them from Internet banking (usually as CSV file) and importing them into accounting software that does some matching.

[mlungu]

Hi guys

 

Always good to see such involvement from a community - instils confidence.

 

 

 

Would something like this work? When you add a payment manually, it will automatically apply the payment to the invoices, oldest first. It will check any invoices with an amount above zero.
E.g. if the client has three invoices - $30 and $10, and $20 and paid $37, $30 will be paid to the first invoice and $7 to the second. The third invoice will be unpaid.

Yes, that would do the trick. And I assume it would automatically put whatever excess in credit?

 

 

 

Wouldn't that complicates things when sending payment reminders?

Not really - in other systems where I have seen that work, it simply sends a reminder if any amount is outstanding for longer than x days since the last invoice date. Whatever the amount.

 

 

That is a wire transfer that the customer sends from his bank account to your bank account using Internet banking.

Popular in countries were credit cards are not common, where cards are restricted to offline use, and/or where people simply do not feel comfortable supplying their card details to some random shop online (quite a significant part of continental Europe)

There do are gateways that can process those for you (e.g. Multisafepay), but most companies prefer to receive the payments in their own bank account, and process them manually by looking at their bank statement.

Or semi-manually by exporting them from Internet banking (usually as CSV file) and importing them into accounting software that does some matching.

100% correct, with the additional issue of the credit card cost. When you run a business with 10% margins, paying 4% to mastercard/visa is not a real option!

[flangefrog]

Yes, that would do the trick. And I assume it would automatically put whatever excess in credit?

 

That's right. The credit will automatically be applied to any new invoices created.