Vendor Prepayments
A Vendor Prepayment records real money leaving one of your cash or bank accounts before the vendor's bill even exists: an advance to kick off a job, a security deposit, or any payment you make to a vendor without yet having a specific document to offset. Unlike a Bill Payment, a prepayment isn't applied to any bill right away; it stays as a balance in your favor against that vendor until you decide to use it.
Once the vendor's bill arrives and you want to deduct the prepayment you already gave them, use the Vendor Credit Applications screen: that's the step that moves the prepayment's balance onto the matching bill. A Vendor Prepayment, on its own, never bills or deducts a document directly.
What is it and what is it for?
Record here any payment you make to a vendor without a bill already in place. When you save it, AdmCloud generates the matching accounting entry: it credits the cash or bank account the money came from and debits the Vendor Prepayments account tied to that vendor and that currency, since it isn't known yet which bill this payment will be applied to.
If your company has the payment authorization workflow turned on, the prepayment can stay in Pending Authorization status until someone with the right permission approves it; the accounting entry is generated when it's authorized (or right away if your company posts payments without requiring authorization). Check the Payment Authorization screen to manage that approval queue alongside the rest of your outgoing payments.
Screens in this area
| Screen | What it does |
|---|---|
| List | All registered prepayments, with customizable columns (number, date, reference, vendor, currency, amount, exchange rate, subsidiary), a date/subsidiary/vendor filter, access to the Report and a direct link to pending authorization payments. |
| Create / Edit | The prepayment form: vendor, cash/bank account, currency, exchange rate, payment type, amount, check number, beneficiary, internal notes, reference, location, subsidiary, cost centers (department, division, item class) and project. Includes the attached-files tab, with automatic receipt recognition (OCR) if your plan includes it. You can open it blank or pre-loaded from a Vendor Bill, an Expense Report, or a bank feed reconciliation. |
| Details | The same prepayment in read-only mode, with its authorization status, the assigned authorizer, action buttons (edit, duplicate, print, journal entry, authorize, reject, mark pending or draft, void, delete), and the list of documents the prepayment has already been applied to. |
| A printable or PDF format of the prepayment (the default one or a custom template), with the company's data, the vendor/beneficiary and the bank account the payment came from. |
How to record a prepayment step by step
- Open the list and click Create, or open it from the Details of the Vendor Bill or Expense Report that triggered the prepayment, so the vendor is pulled in automatically.
- Select the vendor. Required; it cannot be void.
- Choose the cash or bank account the money will leave from. If your company only uses one account or currency, the system fills it in automatically; the prepayment's currency is taken from that account.
- Enter the payment type and amount, and confirm the proposed exchange rate if the account's currency isn't the company's functional currency.
- Fill in the cost centers (department, division, item class) and the project if your plan has it enabled, when the prepayment needs to be charged to a specific costing record.
- Attach the supporting document (voucher, transfer receipt, etc.) on the files tab; if your plan includes image recognition, AdmCloud can fill in the vendor and date automatically from the receipt.
- Save. If your company uses payment authorization, the prepayment stays Pending Authorization until an authorizer approves it; once authorized, AdmCloud generates the accounting entry and, if applicable, the check number.
Key fields
| Field | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Number | Automatic numbering per location/subsidiary; you can type it manually if the document won't be printed, but it can't be repeated. |
| Vendor | Who the prepayment is given to. Required; cannot be void. |
| Date | Defaults to today; must fall within an open Banking accounting period. |
| Cash/bank account | Where the money leaves from. Must be active when you create or duplicate the document, and belong to the prepayment's subsidiary. If it is made inactive afterwards the prepayment keeps its account and can still be edited, but you can't switch it to a different inactive account. |
| Currency | Taken from the selected cash/bank account; must match that account's currency. |
| Exchange rate | Required and greater than zero; validated against the subsidiary's functional currency. |
| Payment type | Required; also determines whether the prepayment is eligible to generate a bank transfer file. |
| Amount | The total given to the vendor. |
| Check number | Optional; if the document is flagged to print, AdmCloud assigns it automatically when printing. |
| Beneficiary | Defaults to the vendor's name (or the one detected by OCR), but you can override it. |
| Reference and Internal notes | Free text to note the reason for the prepayment; the reference can be filtered on the list. |
| Location / Subsidiary | The location and, if your plan has them enabled, the subsidiary the prepayment belongs to; both default from your user's settings. |
| Department, Division, Item Class | Optional cost centers carried over to the accounting entry. |
| Project | Optional; only shown if your plan has Projects enabled. |
| Employee (requester) | Defaults to the user creating the document. |
| Attached files | Supporting documentation for the prepayment; supports automatic image/PDF recognition (OCR) if your plan includes it. |
Validations when saving
- Vendor is required and cannot be void.
- Currency is required, taken from the selected cash/bank account, and must match that account's currency.
- Cash/bank account is required; must be active when creating the document (not required to be active when editing).
- Payment type is required.
- Exchange rate must be greater than zero and consistent with the subsidiary's functional currency.
- The document number can't be repeated, nor changed once editing.
- The check number can't be repeated on the same cash/bank account, unless the document is set to be printed.
- An open Banking accounting period for the prepayment's date.
- You can't change the vendor, currency or exchange rate when editing if the prepayment already has active linked records (for example, a credit application).
- Accounts not yet reconciled are required to edit the prepayment, if your company uses bank reconciliation on those accounts.
- You can't edit a voided prepayment.
Authorization, voiding and deletion
- If your company uses the authorization workflow, the prepayment moves through the Draft, Pending Authorization, Authorized and Rejected states; you can change it from the buttons on Details or from the Payment Authorization screen.
- The accounting entry is generated when the prepayment is authorized (or right away when it's created, if your company posts payments without authorization); rejecting it or sending it back to draft/pending removes that entry until it's authorized again.
- You can assign an authorizer from Details without entering edit mode; AdmCloud sends them a notification and an email.
- Voiding keeps the document and its history marked as voided, for audit purposes.
- Deleting is only possible if the prepayment has no dependent documents (for example, a credit application using it); otherwise, void it instead.
Reports
From the Report button on the list you can generate the vendor prepayments report, filterable by date, vendor(s), subsidiary, project, cash/bank account, location, purchase order, currency, document type, and whether to include only pending-authorization prepayments, only those with an open balance, or include voided ones.
Availability, permissions and conditions
- Access is controlled by the "Payments" permission (the same one that governs Bill Payments, Bank-to-Bank Transfers, and Vendor Credit Applications), with separate levels to browse, add, edit, delete, void and authorize.
- The Subsidiary column and field only show up if your plan has subsidiaries enabled.
- The Project column only shows up if your plan has Projects enabled.
- Automatic receipt recognition (OCR) when attaching a file requires your plan to include that feature.
- Bank transfer file generation is only available in the Dominican Republic, and with that feature enabled on your company.
- You can pick a different print template than the default one if your company has custom templates configured for this screen.
Tips and common mistakes
Don't confuse this screen with Bill Payment. A Bill Payment is applied right away to a specific vendor bill; a prepayment stays as a balance in your favor until you decide to use it, whether or not a related bill already exists.
Bill already arrived and you want to deduct the prepayment? Go to Vendor Credit Applications and offset the prepayment's balance against the bill; the prepayment itself isn't edited to "turn it into" a bill.
Prepayment not posting when you save it? That's normal if your company uses payment authorization: the accounting entry is generated when the prepayment is authorized, not when it's created.