Advance Payment Tracking
Advance payments — deposits, pre-payments, retainers — are a normal part of many business relationships. A deposit at the start of a project. A pre-payment for custom goods. A retainer for ongoing services.
Managing these alongside regular invoices creates accounting complexity that most invoicing tools don't handle well. The deposit was paid. How much of the final invoice does it offset? What's the outstanding balance? Where is the payment documented?
Swifty handles this as a first-class workflow.
Advance Payment Documents
Advance payment documents in Swifty are distinct records — separate from regular invoices but linked to the same customer and project context. They have their own:
- Unique document number and professional formatting
- Workflow states (Draft → Issued → Paid)
- PDF generation for sending to customers
- Full audit trail
When an advance payment is collected, it's documented. When it's applied against a final invoice, that relationship is recorded.
Application to Final Invoices
When generating the final invoice, advance payments already collected can be applied as credit. The remaining balance is clear. The relationship between the advance and the final payment is documented on both records.
No manual reconciliation. No spreadsheet to track what's been applied. The platform maintains the relationship.
Visibility at Every Stage
The customer account view shows what's been billed, what's been paid, what's pending, and what advance balance remains. At any moment, the financial picture of a customer relationship is clear without hunting across multiple records.
For Project-Based Businesses
Advance payment tracking is particularly valuable for project-based businesses, where the payment flow often involves:
- A deposit to start
- Progress payments at milestones
- A final balance on completion
Swifty handles each of these as linked documents with a clear overall picture — making multi-stage payment management straightforward rather than complex.