Matching a Payment to Bills
The two places a vendor payment is allocated — and why only one of them has helpers.
Cash leaving your bank and the bills it settles are two different facts. The journal posts either way; allocation is what tells Trabalance which bills the money closed. A payment with no allocation is not an error — it is cash sitting on account against the vendor.
There are exactly two surfaces where allocation happens, and they do not offer the same tools.
Surface 1 — the Payment Form
Navigate to: Procurement → Payment vouchers → New, or Record Payment on a bill.
Once you have chosen a vendor and entered an Amount, the allocation grid unlocks. Until an amount is entered the grid stays greyed out — there is nothing to spread.
Columns are # · Document · Amount · Tax · Discount · Gross. Above them a sticky strip reads Payment · Allocated · N remaining, switching to Fully allocated or Over by X as you go.
Two helpers live here and nowhere else:
| Helper | What it does |
|---|---|
| Apply oldest first | Sorts the vendor's open documents by date, oldest first, and fills each one with the lesser of what is left and what it owes — until the payment is exhausted. Disabled once nothing remains to allocate. |
| Pay in full | A per-row link, shown only while that row's amount is below its outstanding balance. Sets the row to settle the bill completely. |
Withholding tax is picked in the row's Tax column, and the totals read Amount Payable − Cash discount − Tax = Amount Paid. See WHT on vendor payments.
You can save a payment with no allocation at all. It posts, it reduces the vendor's overall payable, and it reads Unmatched until you come back and allocate it. That is the right thing to do when you are paying in advance.
Surface 2 — Match Bills, on a Saved Payment
Navigate to: the payment voucher's detail page.
A Match Bills section appears on the voucher — but only while its status is Unmatched or Partly matched. It shows the unmatched balance and a button.
Inside, the modal lists the vendor's Unpaid and Partly paid bills — plus any opening balance or statement document, which is why an old migrated balance can be settled here too. A header strip tracks Remaining balance · Allocated · Unallocated, and a search box filters by number, subject or party name.
Columns: Bill # · Subject · Total · Balance · Amount to match.
There is no Apply oldest first and no Pay in full in the Match Bills modal. Every figure is typed by hand, and a row that exceeds its own balance shows Exceeds balance inline. Allocating more than the remaining balance is refused outright. If you want the helpers, allocate on the payment form instead — which means, for a bank-fed payment, that you are typing.
Which Surface You End Up On
| How the payment was created | Where you allocate | Helpers available? |
|---|---|---|
| Record Payment from a bill | The payment form — the bill is pre-filled as a single allocation row for its outstanding balance | Yes |
| New payment voucher, Apply to Bill | The payment form | Yes |
| New payment voucher, Payment on Account | Match Bills later, on the saved voucher | No |
| Converted from a bank statement line | Match Bills, always — the voucher lands Unmatched | No |
Status Follows Allocation
You never set a voucher's match status. It is computed from how much of the amount is allocated.
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Unmatched | Posted, but none of the cash is allocated to a bill. The full amount sits as a credit against the vendor. |
| Partly matched | Some of the amount is allocated; the rest remains on account. |
| Matched | Fully allocated. The Match Bills section disappears. |
A Worked Allocation
You pay Meridian Supplies 800.00. Three bills are open: 420.00, 951.60 and 610.00.
On the payment form, the helper fills BIL000038 with its full 420.00, then puts the remaining 380.00 against BIL000041. BIL000044 is left at zero — the money ran out.
The voucher posts DR Accounts Payable 800.00, CR Bank 800.00, and reads Matched. BIL000038 becomes Paid; BIL000041 becomes Partly paid with 571.60 still owing; BIL000044 is untouched.
Apply oldest first, and the settlement engine behind it, order open documents by the document's own date. An opening balance or statement is exhausted before ordinary bills, whatever its date.
Related
- Recording the payment in the first place: Manual payment.
- Vouchers that always land unmatched: Bank-led payment.
- Settling one bill across several payments: Piecemeal payment.
- Withholding on the allocation row: WHT on vendor payments.