Payments

Overview

Payments record money received from clients (income) and money paid to suppliers (expenses). Each payment is linked to one or more invoices, expenses, or payroll entries and tracks the amount paid against each.

Key characteristics:

• Two directions — Receive payments against invoices (income) or make payments against expenses (outgoing).
• Partial payments — Pay any amount up to the outstanding balance. Multiple partial payments can be made against a single document.
• Bank-account linked — Every payment is recorded against a specific bank account.
• State transitions — Payments automatically update the state of the linked invoice or expense (e.g. from finalised to partial paid or paid).
• Reconciliation-ready — Payments create remittances that appear during bank reconciliation.
• Automatic recording — Payments can also arrive without manual entry: when a client pays an invoice online by card (see the Online Invoice Payments help article) or when a payment is recorded in connected Xero.

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Receiving Payments (Income)

Use the Receive Payments page to record money received from clients.

Workflow

1. Select invoices — Choose one or more unpaid or partially paid invoices.
2. Configure amounts — Enter the payment amount for each invoice. You can pay the full amount or a partial amount.
3. Select bank account — Choose which bank account received the money.
4. Set date — Enter the payment date. Defaults to today.
5. Submit — The payment is recorded and the invoice state is updated.

What Happens

• A payment record (Income Payment) is created.
• A remittance is created linking the payment to each invoice.
• The invoice state transitions to Partial Paid or Paid depending on whether the full amount has been received.
• A system transaction is created on the Trade Debtors account.

Note: Invoices with an online payment link are recorded automatically when the client pays by card — no manual entry needed. See the Online Invoice Payments help article.

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Making Payments (Expenses)

Use the Pay Expenses page to record money paid to suppliers.

Workflow

1. Select expenses — Choose one or more unpaid or partially paid expenses.
2. Configure amounts — Enter the payment amount for each expense.
3. Select bank account — Choose which bank account the money was paid from.
4. Set date — Enter the payment date. Defaults to today.
5. Submit — The payment is recorded and the expense state is updated.

What Happens

• A payment record (Expense Payment) is created.
• A remittance is created linking the payment to each expense.
• The expense state transitions to Partial Paid or Paid.
• A system transaction is created on the Trade Creditors account.

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Payments Register

Accounting > Payments lists every payment recorded in your account: money received, money paid and payroll payments, each with the invoice, expense or payroll it settles and the bank account it went through. You can filter it by date range, type, business, project, bank account, amount or keyword.

The register is part of Accounting, so Owners, Super Admins and Accountants can open it. Managers see each document's payments on the invoice or expense itself.

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Payment Validation

• You cannot pay more than the outstanding balance on an invoice or expense.
• You cannot make a payment against a document that is already fully paid.
• A bank account must be selected for every payment.
• A payment cannot be dated on or before your account's lock date, and payments inside a locked period cannot be removed.

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Payments Through the API

With a payments:write API token (or the Claude connector), a payment can be applied from a bank account to one or more finalised invoices, or to one or more expenses — never both in one go. Each document gets its own payment record, exactly as if you had used the payment form, and every rule above applies unchanged. If any part of the payment is refused, none of it is recorded. A wrong payment is removed and applied again; there is no edit. Each API payment appears in the project activity feed like a web one.

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Payment Types

Type	Direction	Created When
Income Payment	Money in	Receiving payment against an invoice
Expense Payment	Money out	Making payment against an expense
Payroll Payment	Money out	Making payment against a payroll entry

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Payment Approval

Invoices and expenses can be marked as approved for payment by authorised users. This is a separate permission from creating or recording payments.

• Only Owners and Super Admins can approve invoices and expenses for payment.

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State Transitions

When a payment is made, the linked invoice or expense automatically transitions:

Scenario	New State
Partial amount paid	Partial Paid
Full amount paid (balance reaches zero)	Paid
Payment deleted and others remain	Partial Paid
Payment deleted and none remain	Returns to Finalised

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Permissions by Role

Action	Owner	Super Admin	Manager	Accountant	Basic	Client
Receive payments	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Make payments	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Approve payments	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No
View payments on invoices and expenses	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Payments register (Accounting > Payments)	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No

Key Notes

• Managers can create payments and see them on each invoice and expense, but cannot approve them, and the Payments register is not available to them because it is part of Accounting.
• Accountants can create and view payments but cannot approve them.
• Only Owners and Super Admins can approve payments.
• Basic users, Contractors, and Clients cannot access payment features.