Vendor Payments

A vendor payment records money you have paid a vendor against one or more of their open bills. Recording a payment updates each bill's status, creates a matching expense record, and turns any overpayment into a vendor credit.

Vendor payments belong to the Purchase module, which also covers vendors, products, purchase orders, bills, vendor credits and inventory. This article covers the vendor payment screen itself.

Who can use it

Admins and any role with the View Vendor Payment permission can see the vendor payment list.
Recording, editing and deleting payments is governed by the corresponding add / edit / delete vendor-payment permissions in Settings → Roles & Permissions.
Some permissions are scoped. With added scope you can edit or delete only the payments you recorded yourself; all covers every payment in the company.
Deleting is done one payment at a time from the row action menu. There is no row-selection column on this list, so the bulk action bar cannot be used here — delete payments individually instead.

The whole Purchase section only appears in the sidebar when the Purchase module is enabled for that user type and the role has at least one non-None permission across vendors, purchase orders, bills, vendor credits, inventory, vendor payments or order reports. If a colleague cannot see it, check both.

Prerequisites

The Purchase module must be enabled in Settings → Module Settings.
The vendor must have at least one bill that is Open or Partially Paid. Only those bills appear on the payment form. Paid bills are not offered.
Bank accounts are optional but useful. The Bank Account dropdown only lists active accounts whose currency matches the vendor's currency, so set that up first under Finance → Bank Accounts if you want to attribute the payment to an account. If your View Bank Account permission is set to added, the dropdown is further narrowed to accounts you created yourself.

How to Access

Navigation: Sidebar → Purchase → Vendor Payments (/account/vendor-payments).

Vendor Payments list

Reading the list

The list shows a row number (#), Vendor Name, Paid On and Amount, plus an Action column. Vendor name links through to the vendor record, and the amount is shown in the vendor's currency.

Above the table you get a Duration date range filter and a free-text Search. Clear Filters resets both. Search matches the vendor name and the payment amount.

Each row's action menu offers Download always, View if your view vendor-payment permission covers that payment, and Delete if your delete permission covers it and the payment is not already marked complete.

Recording a payment

Click Add Vendor Payment.
Choose the Vendor. This is required, and selecting it loads that vendor's Open and Partially Paid bills.
Enter the Payment Made amount. It must be greater than zero.
Set the Payment Date. This is required.
Optionally choose a Bank Account.
In the Bill Details table, enter how much of the payment goes against each bill. The table shows the bill Date, Bill number, Purchase Order, Bill Amount, Amount Due and a Payment field where you type the amount, and the running totals update as you type.
- Pay in Full on a row fills that row with the full outstanding amount.
- Clear Applied Amount resets the amounts you have entered across the rows so you can start the allocation again.
Optionally add an Internal Note. This is for internal use and is not visible to the vendor.
Optionally tick Send Email Notification to Vendor.
Save the payment.

If the amount you entered exceeds what you allocated to bills, PMSuite warns you that you are about to record an excess payment and that it will be stored as credit for the vendor. Confirm with Continue to Save if that is what you intend.

What happens after you save

Recording a payment has effects outside the payment record itself:

Bill statuses update. A bill becomes Paid once its cumulative payments cover its total, and Partially Paid when they cover only part of it.
An expense is created. PMSuite writes an expense named "Payment To Vendor" for the amount paid, dated on the payment date, attributed to the vendor, with the bill numbers and any excess amount in the description.
Excess becomes a vendor credit. Any amount in excess is saved as a vendor credit for that vendor, with its own credit note number, so you can apply it to a future bill.

Deleting a payment reverses the bill statuses, moving affected bills back to Partially Paid or Open depending on what remains paid.

Viewing a payment and downloading the receipt

Open a payment from the list to see its detail screen. It has two tabs:

Overview shows the payment details and the bills the payment was applied to.
History lists the recorded changes to the payment.

Download on the row action menu, at /account/vendor-payments/download/{id}, produces a PDF receipt of the payment showing the vendor, the bills paid and the amounts. The download is only available for payments that have bills applied to them.

Limitations and workarounds

Only Open and Partially Paid bills can be paid. A bill already marked Paid does not appear on the form, so you cannot record an extra payment against it. If a bill was marked paid in error, correct or delete the payment that closed it, then record the correct one.
Bank accounts are filtered by the vendor's currency. If the account you want is missing, it is either inactive or in a different currency. Create or activate an account in the vendor's currency under Finance → Bank Accounts.
The expense record is a separate document. Editing a vendor payment later does not rewrite the expense that was created with it. If the amount changes, review the matching entry under Finance → Expenses and adjust it.
Excess is only converted to credit when the payment is first recorded. Adding excess by editing an existing payment does not create a credit. Record a new payment for the extra amount instead, or raise the vendor credit directly under Purchase → Vendor Credits.
Deleting is restricted by scope. With added scope you cannot remove someone else's payment. Ask an admin, or a user with all scope, to delete it.
The Duration filter narrows by when the vendor record was created, not by the payment date. So a date range will not reliably isolate payments made in that window. To find payments by date, sort the list on the Paid On column instead, or search for the vendor by name and read the dates off the rows.
There is no row-selection column, so the bulk action bar cannot be used on this list. Delete payments one at a time from the row action menu.

Troubleshooting

The bill table says there are no bills for the selected vendor. That vendor has no bills in Open or Partially Paid status. Create or check the bill under Purchase → Bills first.
There is no Purchase section in the sidebar. Either the Purchase module is disabled for your user type in Module Settings, or your role has None across every purchase permission.
The Bank Account dropdown is empty. No active bank account matches the vendor's currency, or your View Bank Account permission is scoped to added and you have not created a matching account. Add one, ask an admin for wider scope, or leave the field blank.
Saving fails on the amount. Payment Made must be greater than zero, Payment Date is required, and the amount in excess cannot be negative.
The download returns a not-found error. The payment has no bills applied to it, so there is nothing to print on the receipt.
A bill still shows as unpaid. Check that you actually entered an amount on that bill's row. Entering a total in Payment Made alone does not allocate it.

Vendor Credits Vendors