People who search for a waveapps invoice are usually running their books in a free accounting tool and starting to collect payments somewhere else. The question this article answers is the one that follows: how do you make sure every invoice and payment taken on the levelpartner.ai platform lands correctly in your books at month end? We do not describe or compare any accounting product. We cover the month-end routine, the reports you need and the matching that stops your bank balance and your books drifting apart.
Why payments and books drift
When an invoice is paid by card, the money does not arrive in your bank as that invoice. The processor groups several payments together, takes its fees, holds back any refunds or disputes, and pays out a single net amount on its own schedule. Your bank shows one deposit. Your books show several invoices. Nobody can see at a glance which invoices that deposit covers.
Leave that unmatched for a quarter and your accountant spends billable hours working it out. Do it monthly with the right reports and it takes under an hour.
Before you start
- Invoices issued from the platform, with a distinct number prefix, so finance knows which system they came from.
- Access to your processor's dashboard and its payout reports.
- An income account and a fees account set up in your books for card payments.
- A clearing account in your books, if your accountant uses one, to hold card receipts until the payout lands.
- One person named as owner of the month-end match.
The lists you need
Every month you need three lists side by side.
Invoices raised. Filter the invoice list in Payments by date range and status, so you can see every invoice issued in the month and which are still open.
Payments received. Export the transactions from Payments as a CSV. Each row shows the amount, the date and its source, so payments made against invoices are marked as such.
Payouts. From your processor, download the payout report, showing each deposit to your bank and the transactions and fees inside it.
With these three, every bank deposit can be broken down to the invoices it paid and the fees deducted.
How to run the month-end match
- Go to Payments, then Transactions, and filter to the month's date range.
- Click the download icon, then open the secure link sent to your email and save the file.
- Download the payout report for the same dates from your processor.
- Record each paid invoice in your books against the clearing or receipts account.
- For each bank deposit, find its payout in the processor report.
- Match the transactions in that payout to the paid invoices you recorded.
- Post the processor fees in that payout to your fees account.
- Note any refund or dispute in the payout and record it against the original invoice.
- Confirm the clearing account balance equals payments not yet paid out.
- Save the files in a dated folder for your accountant.
Manual payments are the usual gap
Not every client pays by card. Some send a bank transfer, quoting the invoice number or not. Those payments never touch the processor, so they appear in neither the payment export nor the payout report unless someone records them.
Make it a rule that whoever sees a transfer arrive marks the invoice as paid on the platform the same day, with the payment method. Then the platform's export is complete, and any reminder workflow stops chasing a client who has already paid. The guide to automating what happens when an invoice is paid explains why that matters for reminders.
Say the office takes about 90 card payments a month for fees and deposits, paid out by the processor in 12 deposits. The bookkeeper matches them to invoices at quarter end, over two days. A monthly match using the three exports might take under an hour. It would also give processor fees their own account instead of leaving them lumped into income. The volumes and timings are illustrative.
What it replaces and the time it takes
This routine replaces guesswork at year end and the habit of recording card deposits as a single lump of income. Done monthly, it takes a bookkeeper under an hour for a firm with a few hundred payments. Done quarterly, it takes far longer, because memories have faded and clients have paid twice or not at all.
The mistake most people make
Recording income at the payout amount. If you book the net deposit as income, your revenue is understated and your fees vanish from the accounts. Record each invoice at its full value, record the fees as a cost, and let the payout clear the difference. Your accountant will thank you, and your margins will show what is really happening.
The second mistake is ignoring disputes. A dispute pulls money back out of a later payout. If nobody records it, that month looks short and the original invoice still shows as paid.
When this routine is overkill
If you take a handful of card payments a month, a simpler approach works: record each payment as it arrives, and check the processor balance against your books once a quarter. The full three-list match earns its time once you have dozens of payments, more than one person raising invoices, or clients paying by several methods. The guide to which payment methods to offer covers how the mix of methods affects this work.
Troubleshooting
A payout does not match any invoices. It includes payments from another sales channel using the same processor account. Filter the payout report by source or use a separate processor account for platform payments.
The totals are off by a small amount. Currency conversion or a fee adjustment. Check the payout report for a line for conversion or adjustment, and post it to fees.
An invoice shows paid but no payment appears. It was marked paid manually. Check the payment method on the invoice and record the transfer in the books from your bank statement.
Refunds appear twice. The refund was issued from both the platform and the processor dashboard. Issue refunds from one place only, preferably the platform, so the invoice updates.
Frequently asked questions
Can my accounting tool pull invoices from the platform automatically?
Check App Marketplace for a connector to the specific tool. If there is none, a monthly export works well and gives your accountant a clear audit trail.
Should I record card payments when paid or when paid out?
Record the invoice as paid when the client pays, and record the bank deposit when the payout lands. A clearing account bridges the gap. Ask your accountant which approach they prefer.
Who should own the month-end match?
One named person, usually the bookkeeper or finance lead. Shared ownership means it gets skipped in a busy month.
Does this change if we issue invoices from our accounting tool?
The matching still applies, but the platform's exports cover only payments it collected. The guide to deciding which system issues invoices sets out the options, and the guide to running card processing covers refunds and disputes in more detail.