How-to
Record a partial payment on a bill
Log an instalment that's less than the bill total. The bill flips to partial; outstanding tracks the balance.
2 min readLast updated 26 May 2026
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What it does
Real-world bills don't always pay all at once. Record Payment
accepts an amount less than the bill total: the bill moves to
partial status, fin_invoices.paid_amount tracks the running
cumulative paid, and the outstanding figure (total − paid_amount)
is what reconciliation and aged reports surface. Each instalment
posts its own GL journal — DR Accounts Payable, CR Cash — for that
amount.
Under cash-basis VAT, VAT is apportioned proportionally. Pay 60% of
a £1,200 + VAT bill and 60% of the VAT lands in Box 4 on the next
return. Once cumulative paid_amount equals the total, the bill
auto-flips to paid.
How to use it
- Open the bill (status must be
sent,overdue, or alreadypartial— drafts can't be paid). - Click Record Payment in the action bar.
- Enter the amount you actually paid — anything less than outstanding is fine.
- Pick the payment date and bank account it came from. The journal posts on that date.
- Confirm. The bill flips to
partial, the journal posts, and the aged-creditor figure drops by your payment. - Next instalment? Open the same bill and click Record Next Payment. Same dialog, same flow.
- Repeat until cumulative
paid_amountequals total. The bill auto-flips topaid— no extra step.
Tips
- The bank-payment auto-matcher is outstanding-aware: it won't suggest a match that would over-pay a bill. If the incoming transaction exceeds outstanding, it'll skip or prompt you to allocate manually.
- Under accrual-basis VAT the full VAT was recognised on the bill, so partial payments don't touch the VAT return — only the AP ledger and cash move.
- Overpaying is blocked at the dialog. If you genuinely need to pay more than the bill (an admin fee, a top-up), record the bill total on this one and raise a separate bill or expense for the rest.
- The instalment history sits on the bill detail page — every payment, its date, and which bank journal it posted.