Debtor Provisions by Invoice Single Dialogs Workspace

Use this workspace to evaluate the amounts that customers owe you.

For each outstanding invoice, evaluate the amount that you can reasonably hope to collect. You can enter a fixed amount or a percentage of the invoiced amount that should be recognized as revenue.

This workspace is similar to the Evaluation of Work in Progress workspace in the Job Cost module, except that it is based on invoiced amounts, not on work in progress. This workspace displays invoices from both the Job Cost and Sales Orders modules.

Using this approach, you can apply a conservative view when calculating future revenue.

When you send an invoice to a customer, you normally expect the customer to pay the full amount of the invoice, so the full amount is included in your calculations of future revenue (revenue recognition). However, to be cautious, it might be preferable to only revenue-recognize a part of the invoice amount.

In this workspace you can enter a fixed amount or a percentage of the invoiced amount to be revenue-recognized. When you print new invoices, you can adjust the revenue recognition in this workspace by creating provisions. You can create reports that display invoiced amounts, provisions, and expected payment, for example. Such reports can help you evaluate future revenue flow.

When you approve a debtor provision in this workspace, Maconomy creates a debtor provision journal. Maconomy either posts that journal automatically or readies it for posting in the G/L module, depending on the setting of the Automatic posting of debtor provisions system parameter. The journal contains entries that credit the provisioned amount to a dimension combination that you associated with the current customer's control account.

You define this dimension combination in the A/R Control Accounts pop-up field in the Popup Fields workspace in the Set-Up module. The provision is offset on a G/L posting reference called Debtor Provisions, which you define in the Posting References workspace in the G/L module.

When the invoice is eventually closed-when the invoice is fully reconciled against a customer payment-Maconomy reverses the provision transaction.

If the customer makes a payment against an invoice for which provisions have been made, but the invoice is not fully reconciled, one of two things can happen depending on the amount that the customer paid:
  • The customer paid less than the invoice amount including provisions, or
  • The customer paid less than the invoice amount, but more than was expected (that is, more than the invoice amount less provisions)

What happens is best illustrated by the following example.

You send an invoice to a customer for USD 1,000. For various reasons, you only expect the customer to pay USD 900, so you create a provision for USD 100 in this workspace.

The following table shows this transaction and a number of scenarios (note that it does not show the offset account for the A/R Control Account):

Event A/R Control Account Debtor Provision Offset
Provision created No movement +100 -100
Scenario 1: Customer pays USD 900, inv. reconc. in part -900 No movement No movement
Scenario 2: Customer pays USD 950, inv. reconc. in part -950 -50 +50
Scenario 3: Customer pays USD XX (any amount), inv. fully reconciled -XX -100 +100

You can adjust the debtor provision manually in this workspace at any time.

In the Debtor Provisions by Invoice tab, you can select the invoices that you want to view in the A/R Entries sub-tab. When you have found the invoice or invoices for which you want to create provisions, you can create a provision suggestion for all of the invoices in the sub-tab by transferring a percentage from the Debtor Provisions by Invoice tab to all of the lines in the A/R Entries sub-tab, for instance, specifying that you expect 90% of the invoice amounts to be paid. This sets off 10% of the invoice amounts as provisions. You can adjust the individual amounts later, before you approve the provisions.

The A/R Entries sub-tab displays information about the selected invoices and lets you enter provisions on individual invoices. There is one line in this sub-tab for each invoice.

When you have decided on the provision amounts, approve the provisions using the Approve Provision action.