Invoice Payments

What an invoice payment is

An invoice is the bill; an invoice payment is the money that settles it. When a tenant pays, whether by e-transfer, cheque, cash, or card, you record that payment in TenantBuddy and apply it to one or more of their open invoices. Applying a payment is what reduces the balance owing and moves an invoice toward Paid.

A single payment can cover several invoices at once, or just part of one. TenantBuddy keeps track of how every dollar was applied, which gives you a clean trail for reconciliation and reporting.

Recording and applying a payment

You can record a payment in two places, and both apply it to the tenant's open invoices the same way:

• From the Invoice Payments screen — the central place to record any payment, and the best fit when one payment needs to be split across several invoices at once.
• From a single invoice — open the invoice and use Add Payment to settle that one on the spot.

From the Invoice Payments screen

When a tenant pays you outside the app, record it from Accounting → Invoice Payments :

1. Start a new payment. Choose Record Payment and select the tenant or lease.
2. Enter the amount and date. Record what was received and the date it arrived.
3. Choose the payment method. E-transfer, cheque, cash, or card, so you know how the money came in.
4. Apply it to invoices. Pick the open invoice(s) this payment covers. Split it across several, or apply it to a single one.
5. Save. Balances update immediately and each invoice's status reflects what's now paid.

Screenshot coming soon

The invoice payment screen showing the amount, payment method, and the list of open invoices a payment is being applied against.

One-off, from the invoice

When you're working on a single bill, open it from Accounting → Invoices and choose Add Payment. Enter the amount, date, and method right there, and the payment is applied to that invoice immediately. It's the quickest way to clear one invoice without leaving its page. The button appears whenever the invoice still has a balance owing.

Payment methods

Recording the method matters because tenants pay in different ways: an e-transfer, a cheque, cash at the door, or a card payment. Capturing the method keeps your records honest and makes it easier to match deposits against your bank statement later.

Partial payments, balances & credits

Payments rarely line up to the penny, and TenantBuddy handles that:

• Partial payment — a tenant pays some of an invoice. The invoice moves to Partially paid and keeps the remaining balance.
• Overpayment / credit — a tenant pays more than is owed. The extra is held as a credit you can apply to their next invoice.
• Multiple invoices — one lump-sum payment can be spread across several outstanding invoices in the order you choose.

Online payments & auto-pay

When you connect Stripe from Settings → Accounting → Stripe , tenants can pay their invoices online from their portal, and the payment records itself. There's nothing to key in by hand: the invoice is marked paid and the payment is matched automatically. Behind the scenes this uses Stripe Connect, so money is paid into your own Stripe account and settles to your bank on Stripe's normal schedule.

Tenants can pay two ways:

• Credit or debit card — an immediate online payment.
• Pre-authorized debit (PAD) — a direct bank transfer with lower fees. Bank payments take a few business days to clear.

Tenants manage their own saved cards and can opt into auto-pay, so each invoice is charged when it's due. See the Tenant Portal guide for how tenants add a payment method and turn on auto-pay.

Processing fees

TenantBuddy doesn't add any fee of its own. The only cost is Stripe's standard processing fee. In Canada that's:

• Cards — 2.9% + $0.30 per payment.
• Pre-authorized debit (PAD) — 1% + $0.30 per payment, capped at $5.

By default you absorb those fees. If you'd rather not, you can set up a processing-fee surcharge from your Stripe settings : configure a card and/or PAD fee, with an optional maximum, and it's added to the tenant's payment to cover the processing cost. Leave it blank to absorb the fees yourself.

Editing a payment

If a payment was entered with the wrong amount, date, or applied to the wrong invoice, you can edit it from the payment's page. Adjusting how a payment is applied re-balances the affected invoices automatically, so a correction in one place keeps everything else in sync.