Overview When a customer provides a deposit, the deposit should actually become a liability and therefore reside under liabilities until the project has been invoiced.

This method will also record the deposit on the invoice for the customer's records and it will provide a receipt for the deposit.

Steps

Create the customer.
Create a Sales Receipt for the customer's deposit.
1. Use "Advance Deposit" item and update the amount to the deposit amount.
2. This should post the deposit to the "Undeposited Funds" account and should also post the deposit to the "Advanced Customer Payments" liability account. The deposit should not show under P&S's sales, but will show under the Liabilities on the Balance Sheet.
Deposit the "Undeposited Fund" as normal to the chequing account.
Create the invoice when the project is done (or when we need to bill). Add a line item, "advance deposit", to the invoice and use QTY of -1 and the amount should be the deposit amount. This will clear the deposit from the liability account.
The invoice will now show the invoiced items and the deposit and the balance will show the outstanding amount.