What is a customer account (cari hesap), and how is it different from a credit ledger?
A customer account (cari hesap) is a date-ordered statement of the debit–credit relationship between you and a customer or supplier. Every sale or credit is posted as a debit and every collection as a credit; the difference between the two is that person's balance. A credit ledger is in fact a customer account too — it just has a different name.
How are debits and credits posted?
The credit you give a customer means they owe you. The money you receive from them reduces that debt. The most practical way to avoid confusion is to record every transaction on the day it happens; if you leave it to be entered in a batch, an item will surely be missed.
Working this way, by writing to the account instead of taking payment up front, is called an open account in business; how to agree on the limit, the due date and the closing of the account is explained on a separate page.
How do you read the balance?
A positive balance is the amount that person owes you. The “total receivable” on the home screen is the sum of all customers' balances — in other words, the money you have out on the street.
Due-date tracking
A receivable without a due date is a receivable that isn't followed up. For every credit sale, enter the promised payment date; when the date passes, the record gets flagged. Once a week, open the overdue ones and sort them by amount; calling the three biggest items brings in a significant part of your collections.
Producing a statement
A statement is essential when you settle an account with a customer. The customer card lists all transactions with dates, amounts and notes; before sharing it, make sure the note fields are filled in.
This statement is called an account statement; we explain what its columns mean and how to read it with an example table on the what is an account statement page. Matching the figures with the other party's record is a separate job: how to do account reconciliation.
Frequently asked questions
What does it mean if the account balance is negative?
It means the amount you collected from the customer is more than they owed — you have taken an advance or an overpayment was made.
What is an opening balance?
It is the accumulated debt from before you started using the program. You enter it once when adding the customer; you don't have to enter past transactions one by one.
Can I keep supplier accounts too?
Yes; customer and supplier accounts are tracked separately.
Customer account screens
