A down payment is an initial payment made when something is bought on credit. It is often associated with the purchase of a house or a car, but it can apply to other significant purchases as well. The down payment is a percentage of the total purchase price, and it is paid upfront, typically at the time of the purchase.

The purpose of a down payment is to reduce the lender’s risk. It shows that the buyer has the financial capacity to handle the loan and is committed to the purchase. A larger down payment also means that the buyer is borrowing less money, which can result in lower monthly payments and less interest paid over the life of the loan.

In the Odoo 16 Sales Module, you can find the feature of allowing customers to pay a certain amount or a percentage of a certain amount at the time of making an order and pay the rest at the time of delivery or at a later time.

For making a down payment, we should first create a sales order.

Sales Application => Orders Menu => Orders => New

Here, we should select the customer from the drop-down, add products, and fill in all the required details such as Referrer, Invoice address, Delivery address, Quotation template, Expiration, Recurrence, Pricelist, and Payment Terms. After that, ‘Save’ the Sales order. Then, we can send the quotation to the customer by clicking on the ‘Send By Email’ button at the top-left corner of the sales order created.

The above window with the selected customer as the Recipient and the created quotation attached appears. Here, we can edit the template and the content of the mail. To send the quotation to the customer, click on the ‘Send’ option. Now, the status of the quotation changes from ‘Quotation’ to ‘Quotation Sent’. When the customer confirms the quotation sent, the status again changes to ‘Sales Order’.

The next step is to create an Invoice for making a down payment. For that, click on the ‘Create Invoice’ option after confirmation of the order.

A pop-up window appears in which we can select any of the two options in the ‘Create Invoice?’ field. The two options for making the down payment are ‘Down Payment (Percentage)’ and ‘Down Payment (fixed amount).

Down Payment in terms of Percentage

In this case, a specified percentage of the amount is subject to a down payment. Here, the percentage is 50%. We can also specify the Income Account and the Customer Taxes. After that, select the ‘Create and View Invoice’ option.

We can see that the Invoice is created for only the specified percentage of the total amount that we have to pay now. As of the created draft invoice, only 50% of the total amount needed to be paid by the customer during these stages of the order processing. The rest 50% can be paid later. Here, the product is automatically added as the Down Payment with the specified percentage of the amount.

Note that to add a 100% Analytic account before confirming the draft invoice created. Once the invoice is confirmed, the status of the invoice changes from ‘Draft’ to ‘Posted’. After confirming the draft invoice, we can register payment by clicking on the ‘Register Payment’ option.

Soon after that, a pop-up window appears where we can specify the details for making payment such as the Journal, Payment Method, Recipient Bank Account, Amount, Payment Date, and Memo. To make the payment, select the ‘Create Payment’ option.

Once you click on the ‘Create Payment’ option, the ‘In Payment’ ribbon is added to the invoice to mark the payment. Now that the 50% of the total amount is paid.

Down Payment in terms of Fixed Amount

If you want to make a down payment by specifying the certain amount that the customer can pay initially, you can select the ‘Down payment (fixed amount) option while creating the invoice. Here, you should also mention the fixed amount for the down payment. After that, follow the steps discussed for the down payment in terms of percentage.

Deducting the remaining amount

There is also another method for making a down payment through a regular invoice. In this case, the remaining payment will be deducted once the product is delivered and the customer validates the delivered quantities.

This can be done by activating ‘Deduct down payments’ after selecting the ‘Regular Invoice’ option to create the invoice. By selecting this option, the remaining balance can be paid. The remaining steps are similar to that of the other options.

We can view all the down payments made for a particular order by going to the ‘Down Payments’ section in the ‘Order Lines’ tab of the sales order. We may notice that a separate invoice page is created listing all the invoices created concerning that particular sales order. This can be viewed by clicking on the ‘Invoices’ smart button in the sales order.

This is how we can manage the process of making down payments through different methods in Odoo 16. Infintor Solutions is always with you on your journey to simplify your day-to-day business operations.