How to Create Customer Advance Payments in NetSuite?

Ever wonder how to set up advance payments for your customers? Or "I want to create a customer advance payment in NetSuite. Is it possible?" If you have these types of questions, let's focus on the topic today.

Because of invoice disputes, there's no reason to miss out on inventory or customer purchases. A customer benefit payment feature helps you create advance payments for your customers.

Using NetSuite's customer benefit payment feature, you can set up a payment term that allows a portion of the amount to be paid upfront by the client.

Why Do We Use It?

Customer Advance Payment can be used when:

To create a customer advance payment saved search
For a custom record to store the balance Amount
To create a customer deposit form with advance payments as a sublist
Setup scripts for automatic updating of the remaining balance

Step by Step Method to Create Customer Advance payment

It is quite a simple process, but it is essential to know how to do it.

Create or Record Advance Customer Deposit

Go to Transactions > Banking > Make Deposits.
Select the customer from the Customer drop-down list.
Enter the reference number in the Ref No field.
In the For Deposit To field, select the bank account where you want to deposit the funds received from your customer.
In the Date field, specify when you received the deposit from your customer.
In the Memo field, enter a memo for the transaction. NetSuite automatically assigns one for you if you do not provide a memo.
In the Amount column, enter an amount for each payment method used to receive a payment from your customer.
You can also record only one payment method if only one payment method is used.
Click Add Payment Method to add additional rows as needed.
If you have recorded a check-in your general ledger as a liability and later decide not to deposit it, clear its checkbox in this list. So, it will not be included in this deposit entry and will remain on your bank reconciliation report as a unique item until you are ready to make a deposit for it or void it and remove it from your records altogether.

Alternate way of creating invoices in NetSuite

The first step is to go to “Sales” and then choose “Customers.”
Once you are in the customer’s section, you will see a list of your customers.
You must select one customer and click on “Create Payment.”
Once you click on “Create Payment,” a form will be displayed on the right side of your page. This form is called “Cash Sale.”
On the top part of the Cash Sale form, you will see that the payment method is set as “Accounts Receivable.”
You must change this payment method from Accounts Receivable to Cash Sale.
When you change this payment method, NetSuite will automatically set the document date as today’s date, and also it will automatically create an invoice for that particular customer.
You can set a date for which the invoice should be created on the top left side of the form.
This date can be later than today’s date or even earlier than today’s date. You can also edit other details of this invoice like Terms, Due Date, Location, etc.
To record customer deposits and apply them to invoices, you must use the Accounts Receivable (A/R) feature. To enable A/R, go to Setup > Company > Enable Features (Administrator) and click the accounting subtab. Check the A/R box and click Save.

Conclusion

This is one of the simplest and most cost-effective ways to extend credit to your customers, charge their payment later and generate cash immediately. All you need to follow this step-by-step method is an existing bank account with some money. If this sounds like something you want to do, NetSuite, the software, will do all the heavy lifting for you.

How to Create Customer Advance Payments in NetSuite?