A payment the app could not record
By the end of this article you’ll know what to do when the phone tells you a cash or check payment you recorded was refused by the office — and be sure the money never goes missing on paper.
When you record cash or a check, the phone saves the record and sends it on the next sync. Almost always the office accepts it and the invoice’s balance drops. Occasionally it can’t — and the phone never drops a refused record silently, because that record is the only evidence the money changed hands.
How you find out
- A red message appears at the top of the app: 1 record was refused by the office — review it (or the count, if there are more).
- On the You tab, a Needs review row appears with a red badge and the count … to review.
- Tap it. The Needs review screen opens with the refused records under the line This money never reached the office. Retry it if you can, or tell the office.
Each record is one row: the amount and the method, as in $42.50 Cash was not recorded, then the reason, then Collected with the date and time you took it.
What each reason asks of you
Two kinds of refusal. Some can be lifted, and those rows offer Retry; the others can’t, and the only fix is to tell the office.
Fixable — retry after the office acts:
- You no longer have permission to collect payments. Ask the office to restore it, then retry.
- The books are closed for that date. Ask the office to reopen the period, then retry.
- This device’s clock was ahead of the office. Retry it now. — no action needed beyond the retry; the phone’s clock had drifted.
Not fixable from the phone — the office has to record the money by hand:
- That invoice no longer exists. Tell the office you collected this.
- That invoice was voided. Tell the office you collected this.
- The office could not read this payment. Tell the office you collected it.
- The office would not accept this payment. Tell them you collected it.
- This payment did not reach the office. Tell them you collected it. — the general case when the phone couldn’t tell why.
Retry
Retry puts the record back in line for the next sync, exactly as it was. Nothing is re-entered and nothing is doubled: the office records it once or refuses it again. To send it straight away, go to You and tap Sync Now. If it’s refused again, the row comes back with the current reason.
Dismiss
Dismiss takes the row off the badge once you’ve dealt with it. The row itself stays on the screen, greyed, so there’s always a record of what was collected and refused. Dismiss doesn’t tell the office anything — if the reason said to tell them, do that first.
Clear all at the top of the screen clears the other section of this page (changes the office overrode). It never removes a refused payment.
Good to know
- The money is with you. A refused record means the office’s books don’t show it yet, not that the customer didn’t pay. Say what you collected, from whom, and when — the row has all three.
- A record the office did accept doesn’t appear here; the phone keeps it for a while and then clears it.
- The same screen also lists a refused expense, if you record those, with its own reasons.
- Card charges never show up here: a card is charged live and the screen tells you at once whether it went through.