A two-line bill, a part payment, and the balance that keeps itself right.
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When a family owes your organization money, like tuition, dues, or a pledge, record it as a bill. Every payment that comes in can then be applied to it, and CMS keeps track of what's still due. Open the family, go to Transactions, and click Plus Bill. Each line is one charge. Start typing the subcategory, and pick Tuition, Hebrew School. Then enter the amount, twelve hundred dollars. Click Add line to add a second charge to the same bill: Tuition, Camp, nine hundred dollars for the summer. The total billed is twenty-one hundred dollars, and all of it is due. If the lines are due on different dates, Show Date Due gives each line its own. Choose the department. To email or print an invoice, you can also pick an invoice letter. Then click Save. The bill is on the family's record, with its invoice number. Nothing is paid yet, so the full amount is due. The envelope emails the invoice to the family. Now a check for one thousand dollars comes in. Click Plus Payment, enter the amount, choose Check as the method, and type the check number. This family has an unpaid bill, so CMS offers to apply the payment to it. Click Apply this payment to unpaid bills. Here are the family's open bill lines. Check Hebrew School, and the thousand dollars goes toward it. You can also type a different amount, or split the payment between lines. Click Done. The payment now shows the invoice it's applied to, and it takes its category from the bill. Click Save. On the Bills list, one thousand dollars is paid, and eleven hundred dollars is still due. To see who owes what across all your families, go to Batches, Invoices and Statements, and click New Batch. Choose Statements, keep Outstanding only checked, and click Preview. Every family with a balance is listed, with what was billed, what's been paid, and what's still due. Here are the Shapiros, with eleven hundred dollars due. Send Emails would send each family their statement. We'll cancel for now. When the rest comes in, apply it the same way. Here's a check for eleven hundred dollars. Click Plus Payment, enter the amount and the check number, and open Apply this payment to unpaid bills. This time, check both lines. CMS fills in what's left on each: two hundred dollars for Hebrew School, and nine hundred for camp. Click Done, and then Save. The payment is recorded against both lines of the bill. Back on the Bills list, the bill is paid in full, and nothing is due. Bills keep track of what each family owes, and applying payments to them keeps every balance up to date, from a single invoice to statements for everyone.