We are a business that books services out at least 6+ months in advance. From a bookkeeping perspective, we have been told to invoice a retainer (with no taxes) because the services haven’t been rendered yet. Then 30 days out, we invoice for the final balance, less the retainer. I have no way to apply the retainer to the final balance. The only workaround I have found is that I need to create a new invoice and add a payment to the payment schedule reflecting the retainer has been paid. Then I add a 2nd payment to the payment schedule that includes the final balance owing. The issue I am having is that our bookkeeper is noticing payments doubling up in Quickbooks which we have integrated with Honeybook. And they often don’t have a way of knowing which payments have been applied to which client.
I have been advised that collecting half the invoice with GST/PST up front will result in us paying taxes on services that have not happened yet. Does anyone have a solution? It would be really nice if Honeybook could add a line item for something like this that shows another payment has already been applied to a project. Or at least have it integrate nicely with Quickbooks when a bookkeeper/accountant needs to see something clearly. Looking for any ideas or solutions around this.
