Schedule a bill payment

A scheduled payment is a note of what you plan to pay: this bill, this amount, from this account, around this date. It posts nothing to your books and leaves the bill owing. The bill is paid the same way every bill is paid in TALISK_HQ, when the bank line that settled it is matched to it, and the scheduled payment then reads Paid on its own.

Scheduling one

On Ledger › Expenses › Bill Pay, click Schedule a Payment and choose:

• the bill. Only approved bills that still owe something are listed;
• the account it will be paid from. Bank accounts, credit cards and prepaid balances all work, as long as they are in the bill's currency and active;
• the date you plan to pay, the amount and the method (e-Transfer, cheque, EFT, wire or other), and a memo if you want one.

The amount starts at what the bill still owes. You can schedule less and add more payments later, for example to pay a large bill in instalments, but all the open payments on one bill together can't come to more than it owes.

A bill that someone paid out of their own pocket, a receipt, a credit note and a bill in another currency can't be scheduled: none of them is paid by a bank line through Accounts Payable.

Sent, if you want to say so

When the payment actually leaves (you mail the cheque, or send the transfer), click Mark sent. It records the day and nothing else. If you marked it too early, Unsend puts it back. Marking it sent is optional: an automatic payment that simply happens on the day needs nothing from you.

How it becomes Paid

When the payment's bank line arrives, match it to the bill as you would any payment: see "Match a bill to a bank transaction". TALISK_HQ then links the scheduled payment to that match, and it moves to Paid, showing the bank line that settled it: its description, date, amount and account. It does not matter whether you marked it sent first.

If the money actually left from a different account than you planned, the books follow the bank line, not the plan. The payment is recorded against the account it really came from, and Bill Pay shows both.

Taking the match back (unmatching it) takes the payment back too, so the scheduled payment reads Scheduled or Sent again and waits for the right line.

When a bill ends up fully paid some other way, for example by one payment that covered two of its instalments, a scheduled payment that nothing linked to says Bill already paid. Remove it.

Paying from a prepaid balance

Some payments come out of a prepaid balance that never has a statement: a customs or CARM balance, or a sales-tax balance. No bank line will ever arrive to match, so a payment scheduled from one of those offers Record payment. TALISK_HQ adds the payment to that balance and records it against the bill in one step, relieving Accounts Payable, and the scheduled payment reads Paid. It uses the scheduled amount. You choose the date the money left: it starts at the day you marked the payment sent, or today if you didn't. A payment can't be recorded in the future, or in a period you have closed.

Record payment is never offered on a bank or card account, even one you haven't imported a statement for yet. The payment will show up on that account's statement, and recording it by hand as well would count it twice once the statement comes in. Pay it, then match the statement line to the bill when it arrives.

Cancelling and removing

Cancel says a payment won't be made. Remove deletes it. Neither changes your books, because a scheduled payment never posted anything. A Paid payment can't be cancelled, changed or removed: unmatch its bank line first. Cancelling or discarding a bill cancels the payments still scheduled for it.

An account can't be deleted while scheduled payments are drawn on it, or archived while any are still waiting to be paid from it. Cancel those payments first, and schedule them again from the right account if they are still owed.

On the dashboard

The Ledger dashboard's Upcoming payments list shows what is scheduled or sent. A scheduled payment whose date has passed is marked overdue; one you marked sent is not, because the money has left and only its bank line is outstanding.