Facility: Understanding Credits & Open Payments

The Difference

While an "Open Payment" may be conceptually similar to a "Credit" in Time To Pet, there are several substantial differences to keep in mind. An open payment occurs any time your customer has paid you more than they should have, while credits are used whenever you would like to add a monetary amount to a client’s account, but you will not receive actual compensation or payment for the credit amount.

Open Payments

Open payments occur anytime your client has paid you more than they should have. The two most common scenarios are an open payment made by mistake (if your client paid you $120 on a $100 invoice by accident) or an open payment caused by the cancellation of a visit that left a balance for your client. For example, if your client had an invoice for $100 that has been pre-paid and cancelled one event that you did not charge them for. This reduces the total amount of the invoice to $80; however, your client has already paid $100. This would automatically create an open payment of $20. Time To Pet automatically adds an open payment to your client's balance sheet, which will be available to apply to future invoices.

Credits

Credits should be used whenever you would like to add a monetary amount to a client’s account, but you will not receive actual compensation (payment) for the credit amount. Credits are not related to payments made by your customers and are specifically added to a client’s account. An example would be if you have a "Customer Referral Program" and would like to add a $20 credit for your client referring their neighbor to your facility. Your client will never actually pay you the $20, but you would like to apply the credit to a future invoice.