This article will provide you with a comprehensive guide to Invoice Payments in LMN for your convenience!
Select from the list below to jump to its spot within the article!
- Payment Settings
- Invoice Balances
- Applying a Payment to and Invoice
- Invoice Payment Option from Email
- Payment Runs
- How to add a Discount to an Invoice
- Cancelling/Reimbursing Payments
- Changing Payment Statuses
Autopay
- Enabling AutoPay on behalf of your Customers
- Autopay Processing (Invoice Notification) and Receipt of Payment
Payment Settings
The Payment section will be available under the Invoice section in LMN.
Note: Any payments posted from the Portal, will be read-only. Payments from the portal will be posted to LMN instantly.
Payment Settings
Before you can begin collecting payments, you will need to setup the Payment methods you will accept.
To setup payment methods:
- Select the Settings wheel at the bottom left area of the screen > Invoice: Payment Settings
- Click +Add New
- In the Add Payment Method screen, add your Payment Method name
Invoice Balances
Keeping tabs on customer invoices is imperative in operating promptly and efficiently. Oftentimes, you may want to know the status of your invoice; whether it’s balance paid, balance owed, balance remaining, you have this information available to you when you need.
To access your list of Invoice balance, follow these steps below:
- On the left hand menu, click ‘Invoice’ then ‘Invoice List’
- On the far right, click Balance with the arrow pointing up if you’re looking to see your list of invoices from the most dollar amount that is owed and yet to be paid to the zero dollar invoice- Which means the balance has been fully paid.
OR
If you click the Balance with the arrow pointing down, you will see your list of invoices populating from zero dollar value (balance fully paid) to the highest dollar value owed.
Please note: If there’s an invoice with a negative balance, it indicates that the customer associated had paid over the invoice amount by the displayed dollar amount.
Applying a payment to an Invoice
You can apply a payment to an Invoice from two places:
- Payment Screen
- Invoice Screen
Payment Screen
This screen will show you any payments processed for your account, from Admin or from the Customer Portal. Similar to the Invoice screen, you can search for a specific customer/ job site or filter your payments by date. You can also filter payments by Status (Pending, Queued or Exported to QB) and Payment Method (the drop-down will feature any payment methods you have created).
To apply a payment from the payments screen:
- Click on Invoice from the menu, then click on Payments
- Click on +New button
- Here you will search for the customer you wish to apply the payment to and hit select
- this will then allow you to select the Jobsite for that client; if you selected wrong you can hit the Change button to choose again
- When you're ready to enter your payment, click the +Invoice Payment button
- you can then select the invoice you wish to apply the payment to and add the Payment Method before saving
- your payment will then be displayed on the list of payments in Pending Status
- The fields you can enter here are as follows:
- Payment Type
- Will be pre-selected as Manual Payment - this is because you are processing via Admin
- If your customer paid via Customer portal, the payment type would be Online/ Portal Payment
- Payment #
- If you have a specific numbering system for payments, you can enter this manually
- Payment Date
- Will default to today's date - you have the ability to change this if you wanted to back-date
- Payment Method
- This drop-down will feature any payment methods you have created
- Notes
- If you have any notes related to this payment, add it here
- This section has a character limit of 1000 characters
- Payment Type
- Invoice #
- This will give you a drop-down of any unpaid Invoices for this job site
- Select the Invoice you wish to pay for - Note: If your customer wishes to pay for multiple invoices at once, you can repeat steps to combine any unpaid Invoices for this job site
- If your customer is not paying for an existing invoice, and you just want to process a deposit payment, you can select Deposit/ No Invoice.
- Invoice Date, Invoice Amount and Invoice Balance come over from the Invoice selected. These fields cannot be edited
- Payment Amount
- This field will carry over from your Invoice Amount
- If your customer is only paying a portion of the Invoice, you can edit the payment amount by clicking on it and typing in the value they will be paying
- If the Invoice you selected was selected in error, you can use the trashcan icon to remove the line
Invoice Screen
- From your invoice list [Invoices > Invoice List]
- Select the Invoice you wish to apply a payment to [check your filters]
- Note: Invoices need to be in Approved status to apply a payment
- Select Invoice Actions > Add Payment
- Select +Invoice and add a Payment Method
- Select the invoice you are applying a payment to then hit Save and Close
- The fields you can enter here are as follows:
- Payment Type
- Will be pre-selected as Manual Payment - this is because you are processing via Admin
- If your customer paid via Customer portal, the payment type would be Online/ Portal Payment
- Payment #
- If you have a specific numbering system for payments, you can enter this manually
- Payment Date
- Will default to today's date - you have the ability to change this if you wanted to back-date
- Payment Method
- This drop-down will feature any payment methods you have created
- Notes
- If you have any notes related to this payment, add it here
- This section has a character limit of 1000 characters
- Payment Type
- Invoice #
- This will give you a drop-down of any unpaid Invoices for this job site
- Select the Invoice you wish to pay for - Note: If your customer wishes to pay for multiple invoices at once, you can repeat steps to combine any unpaid Invoices for this job site
- If your customer is not paying for an existing invoice, and you just want to process a deposit payment, you can select Deposit/ No Invoice.
- Invoice Date, Invoice Amount and Invoice Balance come over from the Invoice selected. These fields cannot be edited
- Payment Amount
- This field will carry over from your Invoice Amount
- If your customer is only paying a portion of the Invoice, you can edit the payment amount by clicking on it and typing in the value they will be paying
- If the Invoice you selected was selected in error, you can use the trashcan icon to remove the line
Invoice Payment Options from Email
Payments made easy! Customers will receive an email notifying them of their Invoice in the portal and will have two options to pay. Found in the screenshots below are two examples of Invoice emails that your Customer will receive to make Payment. It will be branded with your Company Name and Logo
Customer Portal Invoice #1
For one-time Customers or Customers that haven't registered for a Customer Portal, they will receive the following Invoice Email with an option to make payment and/ or create a portal account.
- Using the first button - "Review and Pay" - Your Customer can make a one-time payment which is helpful for Customers that you do not perform recurring work for and that may not benefit from enabling a Customer Portal. Included in the email is a second option via a direct link, that invites your Customer to create a Portal account to view Invoices, Payment History, add Payment Method, set up Autopay, and more.
Customer Portal Invoice #2
Customers that have activated their Portal Account will receive a slightly different email with the same option to make a payment and include the option to log in to the Portal to view the Invoice and make payment.
- Included in the second screenshot, The first link - can also be used by recurring customers, however, we would recommend enabling autopay and/ or suggest that your Customer Click here to login into the portal as their Card data would be stored and they would not need to re-enter it each month or Invoice
Make sure your generated invoices are set to Approved and follow the instructions below.
- Click on Invoice>Invoice List and use the checkbox on the left to select all or individual invoices.
- Next click Update Invoices>Send/Publish Invoices
- Adjust the "reply to" email if there is another email address for your company that you would prefer the Invoice come from
- Click Publish to send. This invoice will now go to this customer's portal and the customer will be notified via email to pay the invoice
Payment Runs
Payment Runs are a great way to cut back on admin Payment Processing time and can help to ensure you have steady cash flow.
In order to use Payment Runs, you need to have a couple of things in place:
- CRM Customer setup in the Portal tab with Online Payments Enabled
- Customer or Contractor has saved a credit card and authorized an auto-charge limit
- The invoice status is Approved and the Invoice has been published to Portal (optional to send Invoice Notification). For QuickBooks users, select Update Invoices >Export to QB to queue the Invoice to Publish to QuickBooks
- The Invoice amount is at or under the customer’s desired auto-charge limit
- To process the Invoice/Payment for an Autopay Customer, go to the Payments Run tab, select Invoice(s), and click Payment Run
- Type in CONFIRM then select Run
- The Payment status will update and you will be able to Publish Payment to QuickBooks to reconcile the Invoice
Troubleshooting Payment Runs
If you do not see any Invoices in Payment Runs, this is due to a few reasons:
- Online Payments is not enabled for the Customer in the CRM >Portal >Permissions
- Autopay is not enabled for the Customer in the CRM >Portal >Portal Users
- The invoice is not in Approved status
- The invoice was not published to the Customer Portal
- Invoice exceeded Autopay limit (If you are publishing an Invoice that is for a greater amount than the Autopay setup, it will not appear in Payment Run. Return to the CRM to confirm Autopay limit)
- Filters are not set to show Invoices. Broaden date range to capture more information, and adjust Search Type - By date/ Due Date
How to add a discount to an invoice
To add a discount to an invoice, simply go to your invoice list and open up the invoice.
Please note: the Invoice must be in the “Pending” Status so changes can be made.
From here you will create a new line item in the invoice. You can achieve this by filling out the line description and assigning a relevant cost code. Finally, when you add a rate include a dash “ - “ before the amount so the system knows to discount/subtract that amount.
After applying the discount line item you should see the totals automatically change. Simply save the changes and the invoice is ready to be sent.
Cancelling/Reimbursing Payments
If you need to cancel/reimburse a payment, you have two options: Refunds and Voids based on whether the payment has or has not been settled in your Merchant Account. Payments are settled in your Merchant Account 24 hours after processing.
Refunds
If you have a payment that was processed on the Customer Portal and has been settled in your Merchant Account, you will be able to Refund the payment.
To refund your payment:
- Go to Payments and use your filters to find the payment you wish to refund
- Click on the payment you wish to refund
- Click the Refund Payment button
- Click Yes - This will refund the payment in full to the card used, removing that money from your Merchant Account [there is no partial refund available in LMN at this time]
Voids
If you have a payment that was processed on the Customer Portal and has not been settled in your Merchant Account, you will be able to Void the payment.
To void your payment:
- Go to Payments and use your filters to find the payment you wish to void
- Click on the payment you wish to void
- Click the Void Payment button
- Click Yes - This will cancel the payment, removing it from being settled in your Merchant Account
Changing Payment Statuses
You can update the status of a Payment from the Payments screen en masse, or from your individual payment.
Multiple Payments from Payments Screen
- Go to Payments Screen
- Click the checkbox beside the payments you wish to update
- Click Update Status
- Click the status you wish to update to:
- Queued - using this status will add this payment to your sync so you can import it to QuickBooks the next time you import.
- Exported to QB - using this status will mark this payment as Exported to QB, meaning you are bypassing the actual sync. You should only select this option for payments which already exist in your QuickBooks account.
- Note: you will only be able to set Pending Payments to Exported or Queued
Individual Payment
- Go to Payments Screen
- Click the Payment you wish to update - Note: you will only be able to set Pending Payments to Exported or Queued
- Click the button for the status you wish to update to:
- Queued - using this status will add this payment to your sync so you can import it to QuickBooks the next time you import.
- Exported to QB - using this status will mark this payment as Exported to QB, meaning you are bypassing the actual sync. You should only select this option for payments that already exist in your QuickBooks account.
- Note: you will only be able to set Pending Payments to Exported or Queued
Resetting Status to Pending
If you have selected a status in error (Queued or Exported to QB) and want to reset to Pending, you can do so from your individual payment, using the Reset to Pending button.
- If your status is Exported, you will need to delete the Payment record in Quickbooks
- After that, you can click Reset to Pending on the LMN Payment
- Click Update to proceed
Enabling AutoPay on behalf of your Customers
Manage your customer's payments and payment information seamlessly through the CRM. Now you can store your customer's credit card information to run payments and set up autopay for monthly recurring billing.
Follow the steps listed below to Activate the Portal and process Payments:
- To start, activate the Customer Portal on behalf of your Customer and send Invite. The Customer will receive an email that they have been invited to the Portal but are not required to log in. They can access account in the future, which would allow them to View Invoices, Submit Work Requests & view 'select' jobsite activity
- Once Invite is sent, go to Portal Users and click +Add Payment Method
- Fill in the required fields to manually add Payment Method. For monthly recurring Invoices, we recommend enabling autopay that will allow you to automatically process payments via Payment Runs for Customer Portal enabled Customers with Approved Invoices.
Autopay Processing (Invoice Notification) and Receipt of Payment
In the CRM, Contractors have the ability to enable Autopay on their Customers' behalf. This feature allows you to store card data per Customer and run their credit card for payments. Your Customer has the option to log into the Portal to view Invoices, auto charge limit, approve Estimates, etc. These features are optional, your customer is not required to access Portal and you can process their payment and they will receive a receipt.
Whether or not, you notify the Customer via Email Notification of an Invoice, they can view the Invoice in the Customer Portal and will receive Payment Confirmation once their card has been processed.
If you require further assistance, please contact our Support Team via email at support@golmn.com or reach out to us through our Live Chats feature or by Phone: (888) 347-9864!
Comments