Why can't I record a Virtual Terminal payment against an Invoice?

[thatsmyglam]

The title of this thread has been edited from the original: RECORD PAYMENT - Square Point of Sale Option unavailable

Hello, 

My business has a payment plan option for purchases where the customer is able to purchase their items with a 3 tiered payment plan. Let say their total purchase was $100. They would make an initial deposit for of $50.00 at the time of purchase and would make 2 additional bi-weekly payment of $25.00. 

The updated "record payment" option is helpful when individuals come in and pay cash, however, I am running into issues with my daily sales totals and inventory accuracy. If I run a virtual terminal payment with the customer's card for the 2nd payment of $25.00 and go back to record the payment to credit the invoice, the "Square Point of Sale" is shaded and is not an available option. The only alternative is to choose "OTHER", however, it causes the $25.00 payment to multiple in my sales report for that day. So, it looks like I have collected $50.00 in sales instead of just $25.00

My first question is, am I doing something incorrectly regarding the "SPOS" option becoming unavailable? My second question is how do you opt to make the "Square Point of Sale" record payment option visible?

The ultimate goal is to have one sales invoice that includes all purchased items for that order AND has all payments recorded without duplicating fund collection from the virtual terminal transaction in my sales records. 

Any information anyone can provide would be super helpful, I am pulling my hair out of here!

[Helen]

Hey @thatsmyglam, I'm really sorry for the frustraiton this has caused and I hope I can help clarify!

First it sounds like you're using the request deposit feature with Square invoices to collect the initial deposit from your customer? If that's the case, your customer must pay the balance in full online from the link in the invoice. You can't accept payment for the balance in the Point of Sale app (or online) - which is why that option is greyed out in the Dashboard. 

Another thing to keep in mind is that while you can use the Virtual Terminal to process a sale - there isn't a way to go back and connect a Virtual Terminal payment to an Invoice. I definitely see how it would be more efficient to do this but that functionality isn't available currently.

So, for your business you could:

1. You could continue to use invoices but you clients would need to pay the requested deposit, and then the balance online as I mentioned. 
2. Alternatively, you could set up a recurring series of invoices with card on file to collect the payment in three parts.

I'm also adding on @ACAcatering here who is a Community Superseller who has a lot of experience with Invoices, he might have some tips to share. 

In the meantime I will share your experience with Invoices/requesting multiple payments for one invoice to the Invoices team. We're always looking for ways to improve features and this is really good feedback.

[thatsmyglam]

Hey Helen, 

Thanks so much for reaching out. Just knowing someone took the time to respond is comforting!!:) 

I appreciate the information, however, I may need to explain a little more. I am not utilizing the "Request for Deposit" feature. When we originally set up the payment plan for my business upon the launch of the split payment and record payment options there was a way that we could update multiple payments receiving types within an invoice. One of the options was the "Square Point of Sale"... not the application on your phone but, the payment receiving option on the "record payment" screen.

I was under the impression that the only reason square included that was to ensure that sales, as well, as inventory was not duplicated when you had to split payment for a transaction since obviously the only way that you could accept partial payments was going through the actual POS app or the Virtual Terminal. 

I was able to complete the transactions on several occasions when the system update first launched. Everything worked perfectly. Now, it seems like since they launch the new "Request Deposit" feature, how we originally tracked the multiple payments using SQPOS payment receiving option is greyed out and not available after partial payment has been made? 

Unfortunately, suggestion (1) doesn't really work because we have a 3 payment plan system, not a 2 payment system. And suggestion (2) doesn't work because we sell products so there is no way to automatically control the inventory count. We would have to go through on 2 times for every transaction and manually update the inventory. 

After going back and looking at a few other open invoices it seems like the SQPOS payment receiving option is NOW only available if the customer pays in full and is unavailable once a partial payment is made. Which seems pretty worthless since, if the customer was paying in full they could just pay through the invoice and it would automatically credit the invoice and upload the full payment directly. So, now I am completely lost on the actual purpose of having the SQPOS payment receiving option, at all. 

[Helen]

Hi again @thatsmyglam and thank you for the screenshots! 

I think you might have unintentionally requested a deposit for the customer in the first screenshot. It looks to be partially paid (the paid deposit amount is in green) - and as you mentioned the option to mark it as paid in the Point of Sale app is greyed out. Currently, a deposit has been paid on an invoice client must pay the balance online with a card, or by cash or check.

In the second screenshot no deposit was requested so your client can pay from the invoice. You do have the option to mark it as paid from Point of Sale if needed. That option is there just in case your customer visited you in person and decided they wanted to pay their invoice on the spot. 

I'm not sure how you had set up your invoices in the past but it sounds like it was working well for you. It might be worth calling our CS team so they can go back over a past invoice from your account with you to see how you set it up!

[ACAcatering]

Just touching base to see if everything was worked out.