Pre-payments on Jobs

[paulw4]

One of my clients has a unique situation and I was hopping that you could give me some direction:

(Note a job deposit is where a customer will pre-pay 50% of the job up- front)

My client has the following requirements:

· Job deposit posted to cash at time of check receipt. Post to the current liability account of "customer Deposits".

· There is no estimate or invoice in the system when the customer Job Deposit is received- this is a manufacturing operation, and the invoice is completed after installation and the job is completed.

· The job may not be completed until the next accounting period.

· The Job Deposit cannot show up on the sales report until the job is invoiced out.

· When the invoice is entered a line showing the Job Deposit amount must be on the invoice, decreasing the balance due.

If you get a minute and can give me your ideas I would greatly appreciate it.

[suzannemead]

Use a sales receipt to post the deposit. Create an item for customer deposits that ties in to the customer deposit current liability account. This will not be included in sales. Use that item on your sales receipt. When you are ready to invoice, after entering all the items to be invoiced, add a line item below using the customer deposit item you created previously. Enter the amount of the deposit as a minus.