Pay debt

A customer with outstanding debt comes back to settle. They hand you cash (or tap a card, or transfer), and you record the payment from their detail page. Fexl Lite allocates the amount across their open invoices oldest-first, posts one journal entry, and updates the running statement. This page is the full mechanics of that flow.

Updated 5 May 2026·For v2.2.0·4 min read

The flow

1

Open the customer

From Customers, click the row (or use the Pay Debt action in the row’s overflow menu to skip the detail page entirely). The header shows the net balance badge — yellow Owes <amount> is the cue this is the right customer.

2

Click Pay Debt

The dialog opens with the customer’s outstanding total at the top, broken down by source — open invoices listed oldest-first, plus any opening balance carried from migration.

3

Enter the amount and pick a method

Enter what the customer is paying. The dialog validates against the gross debt — overpaying is blocked here (use Withdraw credit afterwards if the customer wants the excess as store credit instead). Pick the payment method from the configured list.

4

Confirm

The payment posts atomically — one journal entry, one customer-balance update, one shift transaction (when applicable). The dialog closes, the badge recolors (still yellow if any debt remains, gone if zero, cyan if the customer flipped into credit territory).

FIFO allocation across invoices

Fexl Lite allocates the payment across the customer’s open invoices oldest-first. Concretely:

1. Sort the customer’s invoices with amountOwed > 0 ascending by createdAt.
2. Apply the payment to the oldest invoice first — drain its amountOwed to zero, then move to the next one.
3. If the payment exceeds total invoice debt, the remainder applies to openingBalance (the migration-time legacy debt field).
4. If the payment still has remainder after openingBalance reaches zero, the remainder is rejected — the dialog blocks overpay before submit.

This is what makes the AR Aging report correct over time: oldest debt clears first, so the buckets (0-30 days, 30-60, 60-90, 90+) drain in age order rather than randomly.

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Why oldest-first matters for AR aging

If you allocated newest-first, a customer making partial payments would always have ancient debt sitting in the oldest bucket — the report would look bad even when they’re paying regularly. FIFO mirrors how a bank applies a mortgage payment: oldest principal first.

Multiple invoices settled in one payment

A common case: customer has three open partial invoices (200, 150, 300 — total 650) and pays 500. After the payment:

• Invoice #1 (200, oldest): amountOwed 200 → 0 (settled).
• Invoice #2 (150): amountOwed 150 → 0 (settled).
• Invoice #3 (300, newest): amountOwed 300 → 150 (still open, partially paid).

balance goes from 650 → 150. Net badge re-renders. The statement shows one row for the payment with Allocation: #INV-001 200 + #INV-002 150 + #INV-003 150.

What posts to the books

For a 500 cash debt payment:

• DR 1010-xxx (cash sub-account on the active shift)
• CR 1100 (Accounts Receivable)

Both legs at the same amount; no revenue, no COGS — debt payment is a balance-sheet move, not a P&L event. The original sale’s revenue was already recognised when the partial invoice posted.

If the customer chose Store credit as the payment method (only available when creditBalance > 0), the JE shape changes:

• DR 2100 (Customer Credits) — drains their credit
• CR 1100 (Accounts Receivable) — drains their debt

Same balance-sheet move, no cash drawer impact. See Debt & credit for why this is different from withdrawing credit and re-paying with cash.

!

Cash debt payments need an open shift

When the chosen payment method is on a cash ledger account (1010-xxx), Fexl Lite blocks the action with “Please open a shift before recording a cash payment” unless a drawer session is active. This stops cash from landing on the books without a corresponding cash_in on the shift report. Card / transfer methods skip this check — they don’t touch a drawer.

Where it shows up afterwards

• Customer detail → Statement tab — one row, dated to the payment, with the running balance reduced by the amount.
• Customer list — net-balance badge updates immediately.
• AR Aging report — buckets shrink in oldest-first order.
• Cash drawer report — cash_in row on the active shift for the cash sub-account.
• Trial balance — 1100 debit balance shrinks; 1010-xxx debit balance grows.

Related

MODEL

Debt vs credit

The two-balance model and how the net is derived.

WITHDRAW

Withdraw credit

The reverse direction — credit out as cash, with the 2100 liability draining.

STATEMENT

Customer statement

Where the payment row appears with the running balance.