Recording a Manual Payment

When to Record a Manual Payment#

Use manual payment recording when money has been received outside of an online gateway:

• A bank transfer has arrived in your account
• A client paid by cash or cheque
• You are correcting a payment that was made through an external system
• You need to write off a small balance (e.g. rounding difference)

Manual payments are recorded by admins only. Clients cannot self-record payments.

Recording a Payment#

Full path:

1. Go to Admin → Invoices
2. Open the invoice
3. Click Record Payment
4. Fill in the payment form:

5. Click Save

Shortcut: Mark Paid#

For common cases where you simply want to mark an invoice as fully paid without entering detailed payment information:

1. Go to Admin → Clients → [client] → Invoices tab
2. Find the unpaid invoice
3. Click Mark Paid

This records a single manual payment for the full invoice amount using today's date and no reference. The invoice moves to paid immediately.

[!TIP] Use Mark Paid for speed when you have many bank transfers to confirm and don't need to track individual reference numbers. Use Record Payment when reference traceability matters for your accounting.

Partial Payments#

You can record partial payments. For example, on a $500 invoice:

1. Record $250 on April 10 (reference: "Bank TXN 001")
2. Record $250 on April 15 (reference: "Bank TXN 002")

After the second payment, the total paid equals the invoice total and Commerce automatically marks the invoice as paid. Each partial payment appears in the invoice's payment history.

Until the invoice is fully paid, it remains unpaid (or overdue if past due). Commerce does not create a separate "partially paid" status.

[!IMPORTANT] Partial payments do not trigger provisioning. The service is only provisioned when the invoice moves to paid (fully settled).

What Happens on Full Payment#

When the total recorded payments equal the invoice total:

• Invoice status → paid
• For order invoices: service provisioning is triggered
• For renewal invoices: next_due_date is advanced
• Payment receipt email is sent to the client

This is identical to what happens when a payment gateway confirms payment via webhook.

Viewing Payment History#

All payments on an invoice — both gateway and manual — appear in the Payments section of the invoice detail page. Each row shows:

• Amount
• Date
• Gateway (stripe, paypal, manual, etc.)
• Reference/notes
• Refund button (if applicable)

Refunding a Manual Payment#

Manual gateway payments cannot be refunded automatically (there is no API to call). To handle a refund:

1. Go to the invoice → Payments → click Refund on the manual payment
2. Choose Credit Note — adds the amount to the client's account credit
3. Process the actual money return through your bank manually

See Credit Notes & Refunds for full details.

Related Topics#

• Invoice Lifecycle & Statuses
• Paying an Invoice (Client)
• Credit Notes & Refunds
• Account Credit Balance