How to record a customer prepayment in MYOB

Check that a deposit is what you're recording. In MYOB's terms, a deposit is a payment for goods or services you haven't invoiced yet, so money taken against a sales order counts as one. MYOB applies the same idea to deposits you pay suppliers, which this page doesn't cover. If you've already invoiced the customer, it isn't: to ask for part of an invoice up front with the rest later, MYOB uses a payment schedule, and money received on an issued invoice outside a schedule is recorded like any other customer payment.

Use the desktop software. MYOB says a deposit can't yet be put on a sales order when you work in a browser, whether in MYOB Business or in an AccountRight file opened in a browser.

Check the linked account. Because nothing has been invoiced, AccountRight handles a deposit differently from an ordinary customer payment and posts it to the account linked for customer deposits. You can set this up or check which account it is under Setup, Linked Accounts, Sales Accounts. If you're not sure which account it should be, check with your accountant.

1. In AccountRight on the desktop, go to the Sales command centre and click Enter Sales.
2. For the Sales Type, choose Order.
3. Choose the Customer. To build the order from one of their quotes, choose it and click Use Sale, or click New Sale to start from scratch.
4. Enter the order details. Use Layout to show the columns for items or services, click Terms to check the payment terms, and add the Customer PO No. if the customer gave you one.
5. If the customer is paying the deposit now, enter the amount in the Paid Today field.
6. Click Record to save the order. Send To emails it or saves it as a PDF, and Print prints it on one of your forms.
7. If the deposit arrives after the order is recorded, apply it to the order with Receive Payments instead.
8. Give the customer a record of the deposit: print a payment receipt, or open the order, click Send To and choose Email or Disk to send a copy.

The deposit is held against the order. When you later convert the order to an invoice, AccountRight moves the deposit out of the linked deposits account and into your trade debtors account. That move appears in the transaction journal as a Transfer from deposit.

To delete or reverse a deposit on an order that hasn't become an invoice, open the order from the Order tab of the Sales Register with its zoom arrow, click History, and use the zoom arrow to open the payment. Then choose Delete Payment or Reverse Payment from the Edit menu. Which of the two you get depends on the security preference Transactions CAN'T be Changed; They Must be Reversed.

After conversion it's a longer job. With that preference selected, open the invoice and choose Reverse Sale from the Edit menu, then click Record Reversal. AccountRight creates a credit note for the full value of the original order, which you then settle from the Returns and Credits tab of the Sales Register. MYOB's article gives separate steps for refunding the deposit and for keeping it. If the deposit amount was simply wrong, recreate the order afterwards with the correct deposit.

Can't find the deposit, or it shows a different amount from what the customer paid? If it went through Receive Payments, part of it may have been entered as a finance charge. MYOB covers finding, deleting and reversing those in its finance charges help.

In a browser, sales orders themselves are only available in MYOB Business Pro or in an AccountRight file opened in a browser. You can create, change, delete and convert orders there, but applying a deposit to one isn't available yet, so record the deposit in AccountRight on the desktop.