Open Vendor Prepayments

Our money already sent to a supplier, with the goods still to come. The mirror of customer prepayments: there we owe, here we are owed.

Where to find it: Modules → Database Maintenance → Registers → Open Vendor Prepayments

A worked example

A row is a supplier prepayment with its unused balance. The system maintains it: pay in advance and a row appears. The balance is reduced by an application in a supplier invoice and by a row of a Vendor Payments document with this prepayment number and a minus amount (the supplier returned the money, or the prepayment was used in another payment). The row goes when the balance reaches exactly zero. Only a role with the action "Can change open invoices, prepayments and payment histories" may edit or delete a row by hand; everyone else can only view it.

Why look here

This is the company's money in limbo. Until the supplier delivers, the amount here is an asset that is easy to forget: the payment was made long ago, it no longer shows in the bank statement, and the goods have not arrived.

Which is why the register is worth reviewing a couple of times a month: what we have paid for and still not received.

Typical situations

Goods arrived but the prepayment is still open. It was never applied against the supplier's invoice.

An old, forgotten prepayment. A good reason to talk to the supplier — they have your money.

The amount is less than the payment. Part of it has been applied or returned — details in the history.

Another supplier's prepayment. Only its own supplier can use a prepayment. An invoice that applies someone else's prepayment is not posted: "Prepaid vendor does not match invoice vendor". A minus payment row carrying another supplier's prepayment number is not posted either — the refusal names the row and the supplier the prepayment belongs to.

OK cannot be removed from the payment that brought the prepayment in. While part of the prepayment is applied in an invoice or used by another payment, the system refuses: "The amount of the payment exceeds the balance on the prepayment". First remove OK from the documents that used it.

A balance below zero. Applying or returning more than is left is normally refused. If the balance still went below zero (for example, two documents posted at the same moment), the row stays open with a minus: it disappears only at exactly zero.

Where to look next

• Vendor Prepayments History — the movement on each one.
• Open Vendor's Invoices — what we still owe.