14. Advance payments

An advance is money a flat pays before a bill exists: a resident who pays a few months ahead, or a deposit the society holds. Each flat has an advance wallet. The money sits in the wallet until a bill is raised for that flat, and then it is used up on the bill automatically.

An advance is not income. It is held as a liability, in the ledger account Resident Advances (LIAB-004), and only becomes income when a bill is raised and the wallet is applied to it.

The Advances button on the Invoices page opens the Advance Register. It appears only for roles that have the Advance Payments view permission.

1. In the Advance Register, click Record Advance .
2. Search for the flat by flat number and pick it from the list. Only flats that can actually be billed are offered — an inactive, archived, vacant or reserved flat is left out, and the Advance Wallet button is hidden on its page too.
3. Enter the Advance Amount (₹) and choose the Payment Mode.
4. Enter the Payment ID / Reference Number. It is required for cheques and bank transfers.
5. Attach the Proof / Cheque / Receipt if you have one, and add a Remark if useful.
6. Click Record Advance .

• The receipt date is always today. It cannot be changed.
• The amount must be more than zero, with at most two decimal places.
• Clicking the button twice records the advance once.
• Each advance gets its own receipt number in the form ADV-YYMM-NNN, for example ADV-2610-001.

A cleared advance posts one voucher: debit the bank or cash ledger for that payment mode, credit Resident Advances.

Check your bank statement, then open the flat's wallet (the Wallet link on its row in the register). Each advance waiting for clearance is listed under Pending clearance.

Only roles with the Advance Payments — Clear/Fail permission see these buttons.

The wallet page for a flat shows three figures and the full history.

The history lists every receipt, application to a bill and refund with its date, reference, amount and a running balance. Receipts and applications each have a Receipt PDF link. The wallet is also reachable from a flat's page ( Advance Wallet ) and from the flat's invoice list.

• Automatically: whenever a bill is generated or an additional bill is raised for the flat, the wallet is applied to it, oldest advance first, until the bill is paid or the wallet is empty. If the wallet cannot be applied for any reason, the bill is still raised and the credit stays in the wallet.
• By hand: on the wallet page, Apply to Outstanding Bills spends the wallet on the flat's open bills, oldest bill first. It is shown when the wallet has credit and a bill is open.
• When a bill reopens: if a payment fails and the bill is open again, the wallet is applied to it again.

On the invoice page, money from the wallet is shown separately as Advance Applied, in a Paid from advance table with the advance receipt and the voucher number. A bill settled wholly from the wallet is marked Paid from Advance, and its Download Receipt button gives a receipt with its own RCPT number. In Collection Efficiency an advance counts as collected only when it is applied to a bill, never when it is received.

1. Open the flat's wallet and click Refund Advance .
2. Enter the Refund Amount (₹). Leave it blank to refund the whole balance.
3. Choose the Refund Mode and, if you have one, a Reference Number.
4. Enter the Reason for Refund. It is required.
5. Confirm.

The oldest receipts are refunded first. A refund cannot be more than the available balance. It posts a voucher: debit Resident Advances, credit the bank or cash ledger the refund is paid from. This needs the Advance Payments — Refund & Apply permission.

If flats already hold advance money from before you started using the system, load it once from a spreadsheet instead of recording each one.

1. In the Advance Register, click Import Opening .
2. Download the template. The columns are Tower, Flat No, Amount, Reference, Remark.
3. Choose the file (.csv or .xlsx) and enter Balances carried forward as of.
4. Click Check File first. It runs every check and saves nothing.
5. Fix any rows with errors, then click Import .

• No cash is recorded. The voucher is Opening Balance Equity against Resident Advances.
• Each flat's advance is then applied to its open bills.
• Importing the same file again changes nothing. A different amount for a flat already loaded is reported as an error.
• Opening balances show in the register as Opening balance under Mode.

The register lists every advance receipt. Search by flat, receipt number or reference, or filter by Mode, Status and a date range. Each row shows Received, Applied, Refunded and Available, a status (Cleared, Pending Clearance, Bounced) and a PDF receipt once the advance is cleared.

Residents of a flat can see its wallet and receipts when the society has both Invoices and Advance Payments switched on.

• The advance is not on the wallet balance: it is a cheque or transfer still Pending Clearance. Mark it cleared.
• A new bill was not paid from the wallet: the advance was not yet cleared, or the wallet was empty. Use Apply to Outstanding Bills .
• "Cannot archive/deactivate ... advance is still awaiting cheque/transfer clearance": clear or fail that receipt first.
• A tower holding advance is not archived or deactivated with the others: do that tower on its own so the refund can be confirmed.
• No Advance Wallet button on a flat's page: the flat is inactive, archived, vacant or reserved. Existing receipts for it are still reachable from the Advance Register.
• The Advances button is missing: your role lacks the Advance Payments view permission.