How payments work | Made with Pepper

For: business owners and bookkeepers tracking incoming payments.

Made with Pepper records payments. It does not process them. When your customer sends a bank transfer or pays you in cash, you open the invoice and record what you received.

The payment model

Each payment record stores:

Amount: how much you received, in the invoice's currency
Date: when the payment arrived
Method: bank transfer, cash, card, or other
Reference: a bank transfer reference or transaction ID (optional)
Notes: any context (optional)

An invoice can have multiple payment records. Each partial payment brings the balance closer to zero. Each new payment must fit the current balance due. Refunds can reopen that balance, so cumulative recorded payments can exceed the original total.

A credit note also lowers the balance due. The balance due is the invoice total minus the payments and the credit notes, plus any refunds on those credit notes. It is never below zero. When the payments and credit notes are more than the total plus the refunds, the invoice shows Credit owed. You pay that money back with a refund on the credit note, and Made with Pepper stores the refund as money out.

A payment record is never deleted. A payment recorded by mistake is reversed. The record then also stores when it was reversed, who reversed it and an optional reason. A reversed payment stays in the history and counts in no balance. Cash figures keep the payment on its payment date and count the reversal on its own date, as the opposite amount.

Status transitions

Made with Pepper updates the invoice status from the balance due:

When	Status becomes
The full total is due: nothing is paid or credited, or refunds equal the credit notes and no payment counts	Issued
Part of the total is due	Partially paid
Nothing is due	Paid

"Total paid" counts only payments that are not reversed. A credit note counts while it is issued and not cancelled. When you reverse a payment, Made with Pepper recalculates the balance and sets the status again. If you reverse the only payment on a paid invoice without credit notes, the status returns to Issued.

These examples assume no credit notes or refunds. After a reversal, the current balance decides the status.

From	Action	To
Draft	Issue the invoice	Issued
Issued	Record less than the remaining balance	Partially paid
Issued	Record the full remaining balance	Paid
Partially paid	Record the remaining balance	Paid
Paid	Reverse a payment, leaving part of the total due	Partially paid
Paid	Reverse all payments	Issued
Partially paid	Reverse all payments	Issued

Made with Pepper does not change the status when the due date passes. A late invoice keeps the status Issued or Partially paid and shows an Overdue label while a balance is due. See Overdue is not a status.

Worked example

Northwind Studio invoices Initech Pty for a brand identity project: NW-2026-0005, total A$4,200.00.

May 20: Mira records a deposit of A$2,100.00 (bank transfer, reference DEP-20260520). Status: partially paid.
June 15: Initech sends the remaining A$2,100.00. Mira records the second payment. Status: paid.

Payments on the Activity tab shows both payments with dates, methods, and references. The balance shows A$0.00 remaining.

June 16: Initech says the June 15 transfer was for another invoice, NW-2026-0006. Mira reverses the June 15 payment on NW-2026-0005 with the reason "Paid NW-2026-0006". The payment stays in the history as Reversed. The balance due is A$2,100.00 again, and the status returns to partially paid.
June 16: Mira types A$2,500.00 by mistake. Made with Pepper refuses it and names the limit, AUD 2,100.00. Nothing is stored.

What "mark as paid" means

Recording a payment for the full remaining balance is the same as marking the invoice as paid. Made with Pepper does not have a separate "mark as paid" button. You record the payment with the actual amount, and the status updates.

Payment recording scope

You can record payments on invoices only. Made with Pepper does not treat quotes or pro-formas as receivables. They accept no payments. Their contractual effect depends on your terms and the transaction. A credit note does not accept a payment either. It takes refunds, the money you pay back to the customer.

Two people at the same time

Made with Pepper handles payments, credit notes and refunds on one invoice one after the other. If two people record payments at the same time, the second payment is checked against the balance that is left after the first. If it no longer fits, Made with Pepper refuses it and stores nothing. A reversal checks whether the invoice changed after the page opened. If it changed, Made with Pepper asks you to review and try again.

What Made with Pepper does not do

Made with Pepper does not connect to your bank. It does not pull transactions, match payments, or reconcile statements. You record payments by hand. If you need bank feeds or automatic reconciliation, your accounting software handles that part.

Recording a payment sends no email. Made with Pepper does not send payment receipts. The issued original PDF of the invoice does not change. Download current copy gives a PDF with the Paid and Balance due rows.

Compare currencies without mixing them

The same payment steps apply to EUR and USD invoices. Each document keeps its own currency.

Example	Invoice total	Payment	Credit note	Balance due
Globex GmbH, EUR	2,400.00 EUR	600.00 EUR	200.00 EUR	1,600.00 EUR
Initech Pty, USD	2,400.00 USD	600.00 USD	200.00 USD	1,600.00 USD
Sakura Design, JPY	45,000 JPY	0 JPY	0 JPY	45,000 JPY

JPY has no decimal places. These examples use the period-decimal number format. Made with Pepper does not add amounts from different currencies.