Partial Payments and Instalments

You can now pay a bill in parts instead of all at once. There are two ways to do this: partial payments, or a scheduled instalment plan.

On a bill's Payment Details page, the Add Payment section has three tabs: Pay in Full, Partial Payments and Pay in Instalments. A status tracker at the top of the bill updates as payments are made.

Pay any amount towards a bill now, and pay the rest later, whenever suits you.

Open the bill and select the Partial Payments tab

Enter the amount you want to pay. As you type, a helper line shows how much will remain after this payment.

Choose a payment method and a payment date - either today or a future date.

Select Pay Now or Pay at Due Date. A confirmation screen shows the payment amount, the total charge including fee and GST, and the payment method - nothing is charged until you confirm.

Once confirmed, the bill moves to Processing or Scheduled then updates to Partially Paid. The amount still owing drops by the paid amount, and a new entry appears in the Payment List showing the charge, date and time, method and status.

You can keep making further partial payments, or switch to instalments, against the remaining balance until it reaches zero - at which point the bill is fully Paid

Limits:

Split what's owing into equal, scheduled payments.

Open the bill and select the Pay in Instalments tab

Set the number of instalments and a frequency.

Optionally tick Specify start or end date to set a first payment date and/or an end date - clear the instalment count or frequency instead, and we work backwards from a targeted end date.

When picking dates, the calendar marks your bill's due date and a recommended pay-by-date, so you can make sure your invoice is paid in full in time.

Click Pay Now.

A confirmation screen lists every instalment individually with its date and charge amount, plus the combined total.

Each instalment charges automatically on its own schedule date - never early and never all at once, and pays out to your supplier separately, with its own remittance. Because each instalment carries its own fee, the total fees across a plan are calculated individually and will be different to a single lump payment of the same amount.

Once a plan is submitted, scheduled instalments appear in the Payments list. Each one has a menu with:

An Unschedule option cancels all remaining future instalments at once.

Every action, charged, scheduling, who did it and when is logged in the bill's Activity tab.

If your account uses separate permissions, a team member without payment authority can set up a partial payment or instalment plan, but each charge waits at Pending Authorisation until someone with payment permission approves it. Charges are never taken while unauthorised. You can authorise charges individually or all at once from the bill.

Each payment you make in Lessn is reflected against the bill in your accounting platform as it happens, the amount due there drops with each charge, the same way it does in Lessn, until the bill paid and then we mark it as Paid.

For Xero users, if Card Entries are turned on, Lessn will also write card entries to your Xero account for each payment. For MYOB users, this happens automatically.

Whether you're spreading a big bill out to protect cash flow or just paying what you can right now, partial payments and instalments give you control over when and how much you pay, without ever losing sight of what's still owed.