I have read a few threads relating to crediting client accounts but none seem to cover what I need.
I work as a childminder and my client is invoiced a pro rata amount weekly. When the client takes a holiday I charge half fees and this needs to be dealt with as a discount or refund. The problem I have is that the discount amount is more than the weekly invoice amount. I thought if I waited for a second invoice to be issued and then issued a credit note that would work, because the credit would be less than the sum of the two invoices but I can only issue a credit note up to the amount of each individual invoice. If necessary I will spread the credit over the two invoices but I wondered if there was another way.
I have tried creating an invoice with a negative amount, issued to the client, but it did not result in credit being applied to the client’s account.
I work as a childminder and the fees during term time are less than during school holidays because I have the child less hours in term time than school holidays. The invoice is for a pro rata amount, so I invoice the same amount each week but need to give a discount of half the school holiday rate, which is more than the pro rata amount on the invoice.
I still don’t see the issue. If you are giving them a 50% discount then half of the invoice total can never be more than the invoice total you started with.
I suppose this might depend on what you mean by pro rata. Are you invoicing the same amount each month, calculated from an annual fee, or are you invoicing each week for the hours that you have the child?
It took me a little time with the arithmetic which seems to revolve around the balance between holiday and term time hours
My understanding is that you invoice weekly (annual holiday hours + annual term time hours)/52
Making up some figures for a crude, back of an envelope, calculation, if you had the children for a full 40 hour working week holiday time and 2 hours on a school day you would be invoicing roughly 17 hours a week across the year and refunding 20 hours for each school holiday week not taken.
In that position anything in Quickfile is going to require a fudge. I can think of alternative ways to account for this at the customer level but they all hit issues down the line. From an accounting point of view the easiest solution is simply to charge what is due each week but I can understand that this gives undesirable cashflow issues for both you and your customers as well as increased admin for you.
EDIT
Looking at that post I think I have worked the example based on university rather than school holidays, the numbers may be a little adrift but the principle still holds
/EDIT
Hi. Thanks for your response. The pro rata invoices do give me a more regular income but some parents require it when getting tax credits assistance to pay for childcare.