Take a payment

This page assumes the Payments and cash register feature is turned on (Settings › Features, see Features).

With built-in invoicing, Garage+ records every payment you receive for an invoice: the amount, the method (card on your terminal, cash, cheque, transfer…), the date and time, and who entered it. Garage+ does not take any money itself: the customer pays on your terminal, in cash or by cheque, and you record that payment.

Each payment is chained and signed in the garage’s fiscal journal when it is recorded (see Compliance). It can be neither changed nor deleted: a mistake is corrected with a cancellation with a reason or a move, which stay visible.

Taking a payment requires the Take payments, refunds and deposits permission (Administrator and Reception roles); cancelling or moving one, the Cancel or move a payment permission (Administrator by default). See Roles. A real garage whose invoicing is not yet activated cannot take payments.

Payments section of the work order

As soon as a work order has an invoice issued by Garage+, the Payments section of its page shows:

• Total incl. VAT, any Credit notes, what is Paid and the Amount due;
• an Amount due €X banner with the Take payment button while the invoice is not paid, Paid ✓ afterwards, or Overpaid when the customer paid more than due (after a credit note, for example);
• the list of payments: date, method, amount, member who entered it; a cancelled payment stays struck through, with the cancellation date and reason.

The amount due is calculated each time it is shown: invoice amount, minus credit notes, minus payments not cancelled. Other devices showing the page update by themselves.

Take a payment

1. In the Payments section, click Take payment. The same dialog opens from the Work orders list (Invoices tab, Take payment button of a row) and, right after issuing, in the Invoice and collect wizard.
2. The amount is prefilled with the amount due; change it for a partial payment.
3. Choose the method: the customer’s usual method (their record) is already selected. The garage’s first four methods are large buttons; the others are under Other. Methods are set in Settings › Garage.
4. Click Confirm €X.

Cash: choose Exact amount or a rounded-up amount (the next €5, €10 or €50), or type the amount received; Change due is shown. A notice reminds you of the legal cash ceiling for the job (€1,000 by default, including the cash already paid on the work order: “already €500”); beyond it, Garage+ refuses the payment. Tick Customer without a tax residence in France to apply the non-resident ceiling (€15,000 by default). Ceilings are settings of the Cash method.

Cheque: optionally enter the cheque number and bank. Like a note, this reference does not enter the fiscal journal and is erased if the customer is anonymised.

Payment with several methods (for example €300 by card and the rest in cash): click + Pay the rest with another method; a new line takes the rest. The lines make up a single split payment.

Several invoices of the same customer: the dialog allocates the amount from the oldest due date to the most recent; you can edit the allocation line by line.

If Garage+ refuses the payment (cash ceiling, amount due already paid on another device…), the message appears in the dialog and nothing is recorded.

Paid invoice

After Confirm, Garage+ shows F-… paid (or Payment recorded · €X still due for a partial payment). Receipt (A4), Receipt (80 mm) and Email the receipt give the payment receipt. Return the vehicle → opens the work order’s vehicle return form.

Payment receipt

Each payment taken (one payment, or every line of a split payment) has its payment receipt, marked “Not an invoice”: your garage, the customer, the date and time, each method and amount with the payment’s short signature in the fiscal journal, the cash received and the change, the documents paid with their balance due at the time of payment, and the Garage+ version. It reads exactly as it was recorded: printing it again gives the same document (a payment cancelled since then shows struck through, “Cancelled on …”, with “Cancelled since” under the total). A demo garage prints “DEMO — no value”.

• Receipt (A4) and Receipt (80 mm) (till receipt, 72 mm printable) open the PDF in a new tab: print it from your browser. From the Paid screen or the ⋯ menu of a line in the Payments section.
• Email the receipt opens the send dialog: contacts of the customer who paid, editable subject and message (Garage+ template). The receipt sent is stored in the work order’s Photos and documents (category Payment receipt) and tracked on the Messages and notifications page; it is deleted if the customer is anonymised (the payments themselves are kept).

The receipt is not a fiscal document: printing or sending it is not counted as a delivery. Viewing it requires the right to view payments and customers; sending it, the right to send emails.

Cancel a payment

A payment entered by mistake (wrong method, wrong amount) is cancelled: ⋯ menu of the line, Cancel payment, enter a reason (3 to 500 characters), confirm. The payment stays in the list, struck through, with the reason; it no longer counts in the amount due nor in the totals from the day of the cancellation. Then enter the right payment. In a split payment, each line is cancelled on its own.

The reason is kept in the fiscal journal with no time limit: write it without any customer name or data (“wrong method”, “amount entered twice”).

Move a payment

A payment recorded on the wrong invoice of the same customer is moved: ⋯ menu of the line, Move to another invoice. The panel lists this customer’s invoices with an amount due; pick one, adjust the amount (at most what is due on that invoice and what the payment settles on the original invoice), enter a reason, then Move. The move is chained and signed; the payment keeps its date and method. A cancelled payment cannot be moved.

Refund

Only an overpayment is refunded: what the customer paid beyond what they owe, after a credit note, a move or the credit note of a deposit. The refund is a negative payment, chained and signed like a payment; it never exceeds the overpayment.

• With the credit note: the credit note dialog (full or partial, and the deposit credit note) offers a Refund footer as soon as the credit note creates an overpayment: None — keep as a credit (the default) or Refund now: €X and the method. The amount is what the credit note makes overpaid: the smaller of the credit note and what was paid beyond the new amount due, never giving back to the customer the part paid by a third-party payer (bonus, insurer), which remains an overpayment. The credit note and the refund are recorded together: if the refund is refused, so is the credit note (nothing is issued). Without any payment on the invoice, nothing is offered.
• Later: while a document is overpaid, the Payments section shows Overpaid €X and a Refund F-… button: amount prefilled (editable, never above it), method, then Refund €X.

A cash refund is paid out of the cash book. If the drawer does not hold enough cash, Garage+ does not refuse: the dialog warns “the cash drawer would go to −€X” (only if you can view the cash book) and the next cash count will show the discrepancy.

Refunding requires the Take payments, refunds and deposits permission and the right to view payments; a member who issues credit notes without it issues the credit note alone (the overpayment remains to be refunded).

Third-party payer

Part of the invoice paid by a third party (eco bonus, insurer, manufacturer warranty, finance company) is recorded when the invoice is issued: in the issue dialog, Finish and invoice or step ① Issue of Invoice and collect, tick Paid by a third party, choose the third-party payer and the amount (at most the net payable). The third party’s payment is recorded with the invoice, which prints “Already paid” then Amount due; the customer then pays the rest. The block only appears if the garage has a payment method of the Third-party payer kind (Settings › Garage) and only for members who can take payments.