Sometimes a client ends up with money in their favor — a credit. It is worth understanding exactly how PSS handles credits, because the behavior is specific.
Today, PSS handles credits at the invoice level: a credit is simply an invoice whose balance is negative. There is no single “credit balance” stored on the client account — each credit lives on the specific invoice that created it.
Note (change coming soon): A new way of handling credits — a single credit balance kept at the client level (a “credit pool”) — is in development and is not yet live. This section describes how credits work in PSS today. Expect this behavior to change when the client-level credit feature is released.
What creates a credit
A credit appears whenever an invoice’s balance drops below zero. Two things cause that today:
- Overpayment — a client pays more than the invoice’s balance. The extra amount stays on that invoice as a negative balance (the credit).
- A negative line item — adding a line with a negative amount (for example, a goodwill adjustment) pushes the invoice’s total, and its balance, below zero.
Note: Overpayment is only accepted when Support Partial Payments is turned on (see 6.3). With that setting off, PSS will not accept a payment larger than the balance.
Note: A credit is always attached to one specific invoice, never to the client as a whole. In a client’s invoice list, a credit shows up as an invoice with a negative Balance.
Where you see a credit
- On the invoice itself, where the toolbar shows the Paid amount instead of a balance.
- In invoice lists, the credit invoice’s Balance column shows the negative amount.
- There is no separate client credit balance displayed today. To find a client’s available credit, look for their invoices with a negative balance.
How a credit gets used
Today, credits are applied automatically through recurring invoice templates — there is no manual “apply this credit” button on a one-off invoice.
When a recurring template has Carryover Invoice Credits? set to Yes (oldest invoice credits are taken first) (see 6.8), each time that template generates a new invoice PSS will:
- Find the client’s invoices that currently hold a credit (a negative balance), oldest first.
- Pull credit from those invoices to reduce the new invoice — taking only as much as the new invoice needs, then moving on to the next-oldest credit if more is required.
- Record the movement on both invoices so there is a clear trail:
- the credit (older) invoice gets a line reading “Forwarded credit to invoice [number]”, which reduces its credit, and
- the new invoice gets a line reading “Received credit from invoice [number]”, which reduces its balance.
- Stop once the new invoice is fully covered, or once the available credits run out.
If a credit fully covers the new invoice, that invoice is marked Paid (paid by credit), with no money changing hands.
Note: Carryover runs only for invoices generated by a recurring template with the option enabled. A credit will not apply itself automatically to a one-off invoice you create by hand.
Removing or losing a credit
- Removing the overpayment (deleting that payment from the invoice) reverses the credit.
- Deleting a credit invoice (the negative-balance invoice) erases that credit — it is not stored anywhere else, so it cannot be recovered.
Note: Because a credit lives only on its own invoice today, deleting that invoice loses the credit. This is one of the limitations the upcoming client-level credit pool is designed to solve. Until then, avoid deleting negative-balance invoices you intend to keep as client credit.