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Introduction

This topic describes how to pay a partial credit card balance.  This feature reconciles your credit card transactions against the actual credit card statement sent to you.  To make a full payment on a credit card balance, see the Related Topics section below.

As an overview of the process:

  1. An ordinary reconciliation of the account is made, whereby a bill is created for payment later.
  2. The amount of the bill is then changed to whatever partial amount is being sent to the credit card company.

Form Access

  • From the main menu, click Banking | Reconcile Account.  The “Begin Reconciliation” form will appear.

Tip: When making a partial payment, be sure to check the “Enter Bill for Payment Later” radio button.

Field Definitions

  • Account – Select the account you want to reconcile. The balance for this account appears in the Beginning Balance field.
  • Statement Date – This is the date of the bank or credit card statement – the date printed on it.
  • Last Reconciled – This field indicates the date you last reconciled your account (if any). You can’t change this field directly.
  • Beginning Balance – The ending balance of your last statement. If you have never performed a reconcile, this will be $0.00 (zero).
  • Ending Balance – The balance as shown on your statement. Enter the ending (last) $ balance shown on your bank account, or credit card statement.
  • Create Check For Payment Now – Creates a check to pay this statement. For credit card only.
  • Enter Bill for Payment Later – Creates a bill to pay this statement.  This must be ticked in order to make a partial payment on the credit card balance.  You will write the check later.
  • Service Charge, Date, and Account – Fees and charges you were hit with. If your statement shows fees or service charges that you haven’t yet entered into Total Office Manager, enter that amount in the Service Charge field. Next enter the date of the service charge and the expense account you use to track service charges. When you finish reconciling, Total Office Manager adds the service charge into expenses. The date is usually the same as the statement date. In the Account field, select the account you wish to show the expense in. This might be Bank Fees.
  • Finance Charge, Date, and Account – This is usually used for credit cards only. If the statement shows a finance charge that you haven’t yet entered into your Total Office Manager records, enter the amount in the Finance Charges field. Then enter the date and your finance charge expense account. The date is usually the same as the statement date. In the Account field, select the account you wish to show the expense in. This might be Interest Charges.
  • Cancel – This button closes the form and no changes are made to Total Office Manager.
  • Continue – This button Saves your changes and continues to the next form.

Step-By-Step

  1. Open the form as outlined above.
  2. Enter information and make the various selections as needed. See Fields Defined above for a complete explanation of what they mean.
  3. Double check your work and click the Continue button.  The “Reconciliation” form will appear.

Reconciliation Field Definitions

With the Reconciliation form open, tick the checkboxes for each transaction appearing on your statement.

  • Mark All and Unmark All – These buttons conveniently tick or un-tick all checkboxes in both panes of the Reconciliation form.
  • Credits Mark/Unmark – The Credit buttons and date fields allow the user to define a date range of credits in which to then mark or unmark.
  • Debits Mark/Unmark – The Debits buttons and date fields allow the user to define a date range of credits in which to then mark or unmark.
  • Reconciliation Summary Area – The summary area of the reconciliation form displays any Service/Finance Charge, the Ending Balance, the Cleared Balance, and any Difference calculated from the reconciliation process.
  • Modify – The Modify button returns the user to the “Begin Reconciliation” form (see above) where any entries can be adjusted in necessary.
  • Pay to the Order of – The “Pay to the Order of” field is used to indicate the vendor to which the check will be written.  When setting up a credit card in Total Office Manager, not only is the credit card bank account setup in the Chart of Accounts, but the card issuer is also setup as a vendor.  The vendor is then selected from this list when creating a credit card payment.
  • Refresh – The Refresh button updates the reconciliation form with the latest information based upon any settings the user may have changed (like date ranges, for example).
  • Save – The Save button saves the work done in the reconciliation form.  The user can return to the form at a later time to resume reconciling where previously saved.
  • Reconcile Now – After all settings in the form are established and reviewed, the Reconcile Now button completes the reconciliation task.  Because reconciliation cannot be undone, a dialog box will subsequently appear, to confirm that the user wishes to proceed.

Completing the Reconciliation

After the reconciliation is processed a dialog box will appear which confirms that the account has been reconciled.  The dialog box notes that a bill has been created for the ending balance, and that the next step is to view and pay the bill by going to Vendors > Bill List.  To review a reconciliation report, click the Yes button, otherwise click the No button to exit the dialog box.

Adjusting the Bill to the Partial Payment Amount

In the previous steps, a bill was created for the entire amount of the credit card balance due.  To create a partial payment, edit the bill to reflect the actual amount to be paid.

  1. From the main menu go to Banking | Bill List.
  2. Locate and open the bill created in the previous steps.
  3. Adjust the “Amount” field in the bill to the amount of the partial payment.

Tip: To make a partial payment towards a credit card balance, edit the amount field on the bill created during reconciliation.  The new amount should be the partial payment amount to send to the credit card company.

To pay the bill immediately, click “Save & Pay” and proceed as though paying any other bill.  To pay the bill later, click “Save & Close”, then pay the bill along with others in normal fashion.

The amount of the underpayment will be tracked, and appear the next time a reconciliation is made to the account.

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