Match a customer deposit to an invoice

Matching tells TALISK_HQ that a bank deposit paid a specific invoice, so the money is recorded once and the invoice clears from Accounts Receivable.

On Ledger › Banking, find the incoming deposit and click Match to invoice. The picker shows two groups:

1. Open invoices that this deposit could pay. Picking one records nothing yet: the bottom of the picker says what the match will do, then Match to the invoice records the payment and relieves Accounts Receivable. A deposit smaller than what is due is a part payment, and the rest stays open. If a payment on the invoice is already recorded as received (by hand, from the client portal, or by Stripe or Square), the deposit is matched to that money first, so it is not counted twice. A credit or a customer deposit applied to the invoice is not money in the bank, so it never counts as already received: the whole deposit is new money. A deposit larger than the invoice can take keeps the extra on the bank line's category; when the line has no category, the match is refused, so nothing is stranded.
2. Payments waiting to be deposited: customer payments you already recorded as received that are sitting in Undeposited Funds. Tick one or more; the total you tick must equal the deposit exactly, then Match to these payments to clear them into the bank. Their invoices stay paid.

A card payment through Stripe or Square that is sitting in Undeposited Funds cannot be marked as a Processor payout (that mark posts nothing, so the money would never reach your bank account in the books). TALISK_HQ refuses it and leaves it out of the processor list; match the payout to the payments waiting in Undeposited Funds instead. If the payment's money was already matched to another bank line, whether by clearing it from Undeposited Funds or by matching that line to the invoice, TALISK_HQ refuses the mark too, because the same money would be claimed twice. In that case this deposit is something else, so look at what it really is rather than settling it against the same payment. A smaller payment that was booked straight to your bank account, such as the first part of a larger invoice, can still be marked.

The deposit must still be unmatched. Deposits that are transfers between your own accounts, or ecommerce payouts, are handled by their own flows and are not offered here. A deposit in a different currency from the invoice is never matched or suggested, because there is no way to tell how much of the invoice it paid. A deposit dated before your opening balances can't be matched either, to an invoice or to Undeposited Funds: its money is already inside the opening balance, so recording it again would count it twice.

Matching from the invoice

You can also start from the invoice. Open it and click Match deposit: TALISK_HQ lists this book's unmatched deposits, closest amount first, with the date and the bank account. Pick the one that paid it and the payment is recorded exactly as it would be from Banking.

A deposit that TALISK_HQ cannot use is shown greyed out, with the same reason you would see if you tried to match it. The usual ones: the amount matches money already sitting in Undeposited Funds (settle it from Banking instead, so the sale is not counted twice), the deposit is bigger than the invoice can take and the bank line has no category to hold the extra, or the bank line was categorized in a period your books are locked through.

Two reasons do not grey the deposit out. When it looks like a deposit from this customer that is still waiting for its bank line (a deposit you recorded on their page), TALISK_HQ names that deposit and suggests Settle customer deposit instead, but lets you Match it anyway if it is a different payment. And when it looks like a payment already in your books on an EARLIER invoice of the same customer that was cancelled, paid or written off (the usual case: you cancelled an invoice they had paid, its payment became their credit, and you applied that credit to the new invoice), TALISK_HQ names that invoice, the date and the amount, and offers This is INV-1040's payment first: it links the deposit to that payment and records nothing new, because the money is already counted there. If it is a different payment, Match it anyway. When a deposit trips both, answer each in turn. The review queue under Ledger › Banking shows the same reasons on a suggestion it could not match on its own, and keeps the suggestion so you can still match it or link it.

If part of the invoice is already recorded as received, a deposit may cover that part too, so a deposit bigger than the open balance is not always refused. A payment imported from QuickBooks, or one that sits inside your opening balances, counts as already received: its deposit records nothing new. If that deposit was in fact a new payment, the invoice keeps showing a balance until you match the real one, which is the safe direction. Whenever some of a deposit would count as already recorded, whatever its size, clicking it first shows how much counts as already recorded and how much as a new payment, and you click Match to go ahead.

Auto-match beside it is the older behaviour: it scans the whole book and records only the deposits it is confident about. It stays useful for clearing several invoices at once, but it will not match a deposit whose amount and date are far apart from the invoice, which is why picking the line yourself is the reliable route.

The matched deposit appears in the invoice's Payments section as a Bank deposit, dated the day it reached the bank, and on the client's statement. A deposit that only confirms a payment you had already recorded adds no second payment: that payment is already listed. When a deposit covers a payment you recorded plus more, only the extra shows as the Bank deposit.

Undoing a match

The invoice's Bank match section lists the deposit that paid it, links straight to that bank line, and offers Unmatch. The matched line on Ledger › Banking carries the same control. Unmatching reverses the payment, marks its Bank deposit line Reversed in the invoice's payments, reopens the invoice, and restores any category the match superseded. The entries behind it are always visible under Journal entries on the invoice. This works the same for a foreign-currency invoice paid by a deposit in that currency: the payment entry is removed, including any exchange gain or loss it booked, and the invoice's paid amount goes back down by what the deposit paid, in the invoice's own currency.

A deposit that cleared payments out of Undeposited Funds is undone as a whole. If one deposit cleared several payments together, unmatching any one of them sends every one of those payments back to Undeposited Funds and frees the whole deposit, because a deposit only ever clears payments that add up to it exactly. Match it again with the payments it really covered. A deposit you categorized before it was matched is counted once, because the settlement records the money arriving, and unmatching puts the category's entry back.

Some matches can't be unmatched. A match whose deposit is dated before your opening balances is refused: its money is already inside them, so correct the opening balances instead. An older match, made before TALISK_HQ recorded which payment entry belonged to it, is refused because TALISK_HQ won't guess. A written-off invoice has to be reinstated first (Reinstate on the invoice). A cancelled invoice can't be un-cancelled: the payment it received became that customer's credit, so use Apply credit on one of their open invoices or refund it instead. A deposit LINKED to an earlier invoice's payment (This is INV-1040's payment) can be unlinked even on a cancelled invoice: nothing on the invoice changes, the deposit just goes back to unmatched. Two things still stop it: a deposit that is now dated before your opening balances (its money is inside them), and a locked period holding the entry the link posted (move the lock, unlink, then lock again). When a bank has its own ledger account, unmatching also moves any earlier payment you recorded by hand back to Cash / Bank, since the deposit no longer says which bank it reached.

If the match's entry is dated inside a locked period, Unmatch is refused and says so, with both dates. A locked period can't be changed even as an exception, so move the lock back or remove it under Ledger › Accounting › Period Lock, unmatch, then lock the period again. The business owner or a bookkeeper with full access can do that.

You can also let TALISK_HQ suggest matches for you. On the Invoicing page, Run Matching records the deposits it is confident about and collects the rest as suggestions. Confident means the pairing is the only one possible. When one deposit could pay two of your open invoices, or one invoice has two deposits that could pay it, Run Matching does not pick one on a guess: it records the pairing only if the deposit's description names the client, and otherwise lists every possible pairing for you to choose from. Receipts waiting in Undeposited Funds follow the same idea. A deposit that could clear two of them is always left for you to choose. When two deposits could each clear the same receipt, Run Matching clears it only with the one whose description names the client (or their company, unless the company is a single word such as "Tremblay Inc." and the client has a name of their own) or the invoice number and that arrived within a few days of the payment, and otherwise lists both. A name counts with or without its accents ("COTE" names Côté), and bank wording such as "MOBILE DEPOSIT" never counts as anyone's name. When there are suggestions, a Review banner appears on Ledger › Banking; open it to see each suggested deposit-to-invoice pairing and Confirm or Dismiss it. Confirming records the payment exactly as the picker does. Nothing is posted until you confirm.

What counts as naming the client

When Run Matching pairs a deposit with an unpaid invoice, it reads the deposit's description for the client's name or the invoice number, and only counts a whole word or a whole number. Invoice INV-10 is not named by a deposit reading INV-1003, and a client called Art Smith is not named by WALMART. One word of the client's name is enough, except a first name on its own: SMITH names John Smith, while JOHN alone is only offered for you to review. So is a name whose other word is too common to go on, such as LISA CO for a client called Lisa Co. A name that runs straight into a reference number, like SMITH4471, still counts, and accents do not matter, so HELENE COTE names Hélène Côté. Some things never count as naming anyone: an amount such as 300.00 or $300, a number made of only one or two digits such as 12, and the words a bank prints on every deposit line, such as Canada, Ontario, payment, transfer, deposit or services. A deposit that is only matched by one of those is left for you to pair by hand.

Choosing which of two deposits clears one receipt in Undeposited Funds uses a stricter reading: every word of the client's name has to appear on its own, or an invoice number that contains a letter, and the deposit has to arrive within a few days of the payment.