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Posted August 18, 2026

Every AR invoice has a payment schedule. The schedule divides the invoice Total into installments, each with its own due date and amount, and it determines what the customer should pay and when.

The schedule comes from the payment term of the invoice. Each line of the term produces one installment. A line prices its installment either as a percentage of the invoice Total or as a fixed amount, and it dates the installment from the previous one by its own rule, such as a fixed number of days or a chosen day of a month. A payment term can also say that for invoices issued inside a range of months, the first installment is worked out as though the invoice had been issued in one particular month of that range. See Payment Term.

The installments continue until they cover the invoice Total. If the lines of the term run out before the Total is covered, the term repeats the last line until it is. The last installment is then trimmed so that the installments come to the Total exactly, and an installment that works out to nothing is dropped.

To see the schedule of an invoice, open the invoice and go to its Schedule page. It lists one row for each installment, with its Due Date, Due Amount, and Calculated Paid. You need the FinanceAR Full role.

You can replace the installments of the term with your own rows on that page. The invoice must be posted first, each due date must be unique, and your rows must add up to the invoice Total. Reset to Default removes your rows and returns the invoice to the schedule its payment term produces.

Payments are applied to the earliest installment first. Each installment starts out owing its scheduled amount. When a receipt is applied to the invoice it reduces the earliest installment that still owes something, and anything left over carries into the installment after that, and so on through the schedule. Voided receipts are ignored.

Paying ahead therefore clears whole installments rather than sitting on the invoice as a credit. Take an invoice of $5,000 on a term of ten monthly installments of $500, with the first one due in January. If the customer pays $1,500 in January, that payment clears the January, February, and March installments. The next installment owed becomes the April one, of $500, and nothing is over due, even though $3,500 of the invoice is still unpaid.

The schedule keeps these values on the invoice, and the invoice dashboard shows them:

Next Due Date and Next Due Amount come from the earliest installment that is dated today or later and still owes something. Next Due Date is empty when no installment is waiting.

Over Due Amount adds up what is still owed on the installments dated before today. This is the part of the invoice the customer is actually late on.

Total Due is the Over Due Amount plus the Next Due Amount. It is what the customer should pay to keep the invoice current through its next installment.

Next Payment numbers the installment behind Next Due Amount, out of the count of installments on the schedule, so 4 of 10 means the fourth of ten installments is the next one owed. Once nothing is left to pay, it shows the last installment.

Past Due is checked when the invoice has an Over Due Amount.

An invoice that is paid off, and an invoice that is voided, shows nothing owing: Over Due Amount, Next Due Amount, and Total Due are zero and there is no Next Due Date.

The schedule and these values are recalculated whenever the invoice changes, which includes editing the invoice, adding or changing its line items, applying a receipt to it, voiding a receipt, and overriding or resetting the schedule. Because a line item changes the invoice Total, the new Total is divided into installments afresh, so the change spreads across the schedule instead of landing on one installment. Everything is up to date as soon as the change is saved.

The same values are available as merge fields, so a printed or emailed invoice can tell the customer the amount and date of the next installment and how much is over due.

Note: An AR Invoice List shows these same values in its Next Payment, Next Due Amount, Next Due Date, Over Due, and Total Due columns.

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1 min read · Updated May 04, 2026 Article

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