Accounts Receivable

Accounts Receivable covers everything between the customer owes us and the customer paid. In Solid Accounting that's invoices, payments applied to invoices, credit memos, the A/R aging report, and customer statements. You'll find them in the sidebar under Money In and in the Customers menu.

Everything here is a journal entry with extra detail attached — see General Ledger for the vocabulary.

Customers

Customers live in Contacts (Lists → Contacts) with the type Customer. You can also add one from any customer picker — type a name and choose Add "…" as customer. The fields that shape new invoices are the default payment terms and default account. See Customers.

Invoicing

Open Invoices from the sidebar or Customers → Invoices. Posting an invoice does this:

DR  Accounts Receivable                  total
CR  Income (per line, on the line's account)
CR  Sales Tax Payable (if tax applies)

Each line can post to a different income account. Accounts Receivable gets one posting for the invoice total, which keeps the account easy to tie out to customer balances.

Fields. Invoice number (from a sequence you can override), date (which decides the fiscal period), due date (from payment terms or set by hand), one customer, one or more lines (item or description, quantity, price, tax code), memo, and reference number. Tax codes can be combined, for example State + County. Invoices are entered in the company file's base currency.

Status. Draft invoices don't touch the ledger or the aging. Posted invoices do. A posted invoice can be voided (with a void date and a reason) or reversed; the original stays in the company file. Voiding a paid invoice also removes its payment, so A/R aging matches the Balance Sheet. The usual correction is to void it and issue a corrected invoice. You can edit a posted invoice directly only after confirming a warning, and the edit is recorded in the Audit Trail.

Sending. Choose Email invoice on an invoice in the list:

Send invoice online emails the invoice PDF for you, optionally with a View and pay invoice link where your customer can view it online. This is part of Cloud Invoicing, which comes with Updates & Cloud Services. Paying invoices by card from the link is coming soon.
Save PDF and open my mail app saves the PDF where you can see it and opens your own email program. This works on every license.

Customers don't need a Solid Accounting account to view an invoice online.

Estimates

An estimate is a quote. It doesn't post to the ledger or affect A/R until you choose Convert to Invoice. See Estimates.

Receive Payment

When a customer pays, use Receive Payment (sidebar or Customers → Receive Payment):

DR  Bank (or Undeposited Funds)
CR  Accounts Receivable

Pick the customer in Received from and Solid Accounting lists their open invoices, applying the payment to the oldest first. Change the amounts to apply it differently or for partial payments. One payment can cover several invoices. If the payment is more than you apply, the rest stays as a credit on the customer for future invoices.

Undeposited Funds. Deposit to starts on Undeposited Funds, for payments you collect and take to the bank together. Then Record Deposit moves the batch to the bank, so one entry matches the one deposit on your statement. For card processors and other electronic payments that land one by one, choose the bank account in Deposit to instead. See Banking.

Credit memos

A Credit Memo (Customers → Credit Memo; find existing ones with Find Credit Memos…) is a refund or write-down against a customer — the reverse of an invoice:

DR  Income (or the account on each line)
CR  Accounts Receivable

Apply it to open invoices or leave it as a customer credit that later payments and invoices can use. Typical uses: returned goods, a pricing error on a posted invoice, or a refund (credit memo plus a Write Check to send the money). A credit memo leaves a clearer record than voiding the original invoice.

Aging and statements

A/R Aging (Reports → A/R Aging or Customers → Aging Report (A/R)) buckets each customer's open balance: Current, 1–30, 31–60, 61–90, and over 90 days past due. Click any amount to see the invoices behind it. It's the report for deciding who to call, and the one your accountant uses for an allowance for doubtful accounts.

Statements (Customers → Statements) summarize a customer's account for a date range: opening balance, each invoice, payment, and credit memo in order, and the closing balance. They're built from the ledger — there's no separate statement record — and export to PDF.

Common gotchas

Invoice in the wrong period. The invoice date decides the fiscal period. Fix the date while it's a draft; once posted, void and re-issue.

Customer balance doesn't match the sum of invoices. Usually a payment applied to the wrong invoice or an unapplied credit on the customer. Open the customer's transactions to find it.

Sales tax is on the ledger but not in revenue. Correct. Sales tax is a liability you owe the tax authority, so it posts to Sales Tax Payable, not income.

A voided invoice still shows on the statement. The statement shows full history, including voids. The customer's open balance excludes it.

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