if you are working with complex payments it's very important to be able to change the payment
defaults QuickBooks will automatically calculate the amount of a payment it will do this in a
situation where you have something called a split payment a split payment is a payment
applied to two or more invoices for example on February 7th Betty gave us cheque number
359 for $400 she specifically told us that she wants 200 of that $400 cheque applied to
invoice number 6 and the other 200 of that same cheque applied to invoice number 14 we type in
the amounts and QuickBooks will calculate the amount of the payment well why will it do that
well when we take a look at what the defaults are we will have to open the Preferences window
edit preferences and the specific category of preference that we're looking at today is the
payments preference not the my preference tab the company preference tab notice automatically
calculate payments has been selected by default that means we can type in the
individual amounts applied and QuickBooks will calculate the total let's take a look
once again remember it's $200 applied to number six and another 200 applied to number 14 we open
the payments window and we choose customer Betty looking at the date it's February 7th
checks check number three five nine okay now we do not in the case of a split payment we do not type
in the money amount instead we move the mouse to the payment column on the inside panel I think I
would collapse the ribbon so we can see it better we move the mouse to the payment column in the
center panel and click directly in the field of the money amount of payment for number 6 remove
the zeros and type in only the amount that Betty wanted applied to number 6 now we push the tab key
and we get this reminder message this message is reminding us that QuickBooks will automatically
calculate the payment for us we know that because we looked at the Preferences window a moment ago
so let's tell QuickBooks not to remind us of this ever again click yes but notice when we push tab
QuickBooks only put 200 up in the payment amount that's because we're not finished the other 200
will go to invoice number 14 again highlight the money amount in the payment column on the row of
invoice number 14 type in only the amount that applies to invoice number 14 now when we push
the tab key QuickBooks calculated the total amount that's how you put it in for a split payment when
we click Save and close we can see on our open invoice report that number 6 and number 14 have
both decreased by $200 the other payment default that you should be aware of is that QuickBooks
will automatically apply the payment when you put the money amount in the payment window we
will remove this then we will record a payment when you put the check marks yourselves it will
do the same thing that QuickBooks was doing when QuickBooks placed the check marks we remember
to click Edit preferences to open the Preferences window the payments category of preference in the
company preference tab is where you will find the receive payment defaults now notice automatically
apply payments is checked that means that it is automatically applying the payments let's remove
the checkmark and click OK and now let's record this transaction and see what happens February 8th
Allen gave us check number 464 2800 Allen wants all of the money to pay off invoice number 7 and
the remaining 700 or the excess of 700 should be applied to invoice number 9 well let's see
what happens we open up the payments window change the date to February 8th the check is number 460
and the customer is alland I like to collapse the ribbon to confirm that I can see all of his
invoices now in this example we should type in the money amount in the money amount field look
carefully what happens when I push the tab key nothing nothing happened when I push the tab key
that's because we switched off the default for QuickBooks to apply the payments look
how QuickBooks applies the payments when I click the check mark in the margin myself when I click
first on invoice number 7 all of invoice number 7 is paid because the payment was more than the
invoice however there's still $700 of this payment not yet applied when you click the check mark on
the next invoice QuickBooks will apply all of the remainder to that next invoice and now we
have exactly what Allen wants all of number 7 is paid and the remaining 700 was applied to number
9 when we click Save and close we can see the open invoice report reflects what we just did