Why doesn't ContactsLaw allow funds to be allocated to bills issued after the date of the receipt?
ContactsLaw encourages best practices in relation to billing. To that end, it is possible to allocate funds on a receipt, credit note or trust transfer to any outstanding bill on or prior to the date of the receipt. This has a number of benefits to the way ContactsLaw functions:
- Automatic allocation rules result in sequential, chronological allocations
- Direct correlation between the debtors balance and the list of outstanding bills
- Ensures no GST liability on incoming funds unless an invoice has been issued
ContactsLaw, therefore, does not permit funds to be allocated to bills issued after the date of the receipt.
The correct practice for receipting funds prior to the issuing of a finalised invoice is to issue an upfront bill, then post the receipt/TT. The billing period is closed and a finalising bill is posted at some point afterwards (when a conventional bill might have otherwise been posted).
Note that if the bill and receipt are issued on the same date, but in the wrong sequence, you can right-click the receipt transaction and correctly allocate the funds to the bill using the 'Modify allocations' feature.
In situations where a bill and receipt are legitimately posted out-of-sequence (i.e. preserving a data entry mistake, etc), you can post a debtor adjustment transaction to correct the allocations.