Matching a Receipt to Invoices
Choose by hand which invoices a receipt pays, correct an allocation you disagree with, and free cash that was applied to the wrong document. Allocation moves no money — the ledger was posted when the receipt was.
Recording a receipt and deciding what it pays are two separate acts. The receipt's journal — cash in, receivable down — is posted the moment you save it. Matching is the second act: attaching that cash to specific invoices so each one's balance is right and your aging is true.
Matching writes no journal. Nothing about your Trial Balance changes when you match, unmatch or re-match. What changes is attribution — and attribution is what your customer reads on their statement.
When you need to do it by hand
Most receipts match themselves. The automatic matcher runs when a receipt is created and again on a sweep, and it follows a fixed rule — opening balances and statements first, then invoices oldest-first by each invoice's own date. That rule is described in full in Receipt matching rules.
You match by hand when the rule would get it wrong:
| Situation | Why the automatic rule is not what you want |
|---|---|
| The customer said which invoice they were paying | The rule pays the oldest. The customer paid the newest, and their remittance advice says so. |
| One invoice is in dispute | You do not want cash landing on a document you are still arguing about. |
| Automatic matching is switched off for your business | Then every receipt arrives Unmatched and waits for you. |
| The receipt was detached from something | A detached pair is deliberately never re-matched automatically. |
Doing it
A receipt with cash left over shows a panel reading Unmatched balance and the amount, with a Match Invoices button. The panel only appears while the receipt's status is Unmatched or Partly matched — a fully matched receipt has nothing to offer.
The dialog is titled Match Invoices and lists the customer's outstanding documents — invoices, statements and opening balances that are Unpaid or Partly paid.
Remaining balance is the cash still unapplied on this receipt. Allocated is what you have entered so far. Unallocated is the difference. Allocated turns red and a warning appears — Total allocated amount exceeds remaining balance — the moment you go over.
The table gives you Invoice #, Subject, Total, Balance and an Amount to match box. The box will not accept more than that invoice's own balance; a row that goes over turns red and reads Exceeds balance. Search by number or subject if the list is long.
The button counts what you chose — Match 3 Invoices — and stays disabled while nothing is selected or the allocation is over budget.
A receipt can never be applied beyond its own amount, and an invoice can never receive more than it is owed. Both are checked on the server under a lock, so two people matching the same receipt at the same moment cannot between them over-apply it. If you hit one, the message names the figure: "Cannot allocate 900.00 to Invoice ACMEINV000101 — only 400.00 remaining".
Undoing an allocation
Every allocated row on a receipt carries an unlink control. It takes two clicks: the first arms it and the control reads Detach?, the second performs it. The freed cash returns to the receipt's unapplied balance and the invoice's balance goes back up.
Detaching records that you decided this receipt should not pay this invoice. The automatic matcher permanently skips that pair from then on, so it cannot quietly undo your decision on the next sweep. Only an explicit manual match reconnects them.
Two rows refuse to detach:
- Write-off entries — "Write-off entries cannot be detached." Reversing a write-off is an accounting decision, not a link edit.
- Rows that have already moved — if the allocation was changed elsewhere since the page loaded, you are asked to refresh and try again rather than acting on stale data.
What the receipt page shows afterwards
| Element | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Amount Received | The cash the receipt recorded. |
| Invoices | One row per allocation: Invoice No, the cash applied, tax, cash discount, and the gross receivable that row cleared. |
| Total Receivables | The sum of what those rows cleared. |
| Journal Entries | The receipt's own posting — unchanged by any of this. |
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Unmatched | None of the cash has been applied. The Match Invoices panel is showing. |
| Partly matched | Some cash is applied; some is still free. The panel is still showing. |
| Matched | Every unit of cash is attached to a document. The panel is gone. |
Cash left over
A receipt for more than the customer owes stays Partly matched with the surplus unapplied. There is no suspense entry and no "unapplied credit" account — the money sits on the receipt, visible, waiting for the next invoice. When that invoice is raised, the automatic matcher will find the free cash and apply it.
This is also why a customer can show as being in credit: they have paid you more than you have billed them. The customer page names that plainly rather than hiding it.
Doing many at once
From the Receipts list, the Unmatched and Partly Matched tiles carry a Reconcile action that opens a bulk screen. It sorts the waiting receipts into Ready, Review and Manual, pre-fills and auto-expands the confident ones, and shows All caught up when nothing is waiting.
Related
- The rule the automatic matcher follows: Receipt matching rules.
- Recording the receipt in the first place: Manual receipt.
- Receipts created from a bank feed: Bank-led receipt.
- Finding every unmatched receipt: Tracking sales documents.