In Teamleader Focus, there is a specific flow that we propose for handling credit notes to ensure that you receive the correct amount, and your client doesn’t receive any invoice reminders.

In short, we generally expect that you issue an invoice, receive and register the full payment, but in case of a mistake, you decide to fully or partially credit the invoice. No problems there. But that’s not always how it goes.


For example, in practice you might want to partially credit an invoice before receiving the full amount. However, a partial credit note does not alter the total amount of the invoice, causing the invoice to remain outstanding, in turn causing invoice reminders to be sent.


The flow

Here’s how we propose you should handle credit notes.


Take as an example an invoice for €100. For clarity’s sake, we won’t add VAT to this invoice.



You want to partially credit the invoice for €50. 

  1. Click on Credit note 

  2. Adjust the amount 

  3. Save and book


You’ll be redirected to the credit note page. You can choose to send the credit note to your client or put it on ‘paid’ as a confirmation for yourself that you paid the amount back.


Now if you go back to the invoice page, you’ll see that the invoice is still open, and its total is still €100. We recommend here to put the invoice to ‘fully paid’.

  1. Click on Paid
  2. Choose Full payment
  3. Optionally edit the payment date, the payment method, or choose to send a thank you message

  4. Click on Add payment


Done! The invoice is now closed, and the credit note has altered its amount. The flow makes sure that in the end, the total amount of the invoice minus the total amount of the credit note results in a correctly calculated paid amount. Consequently, that calculation will also be correct in your bookkeeping system.


The consequences for automatic reminders

If you partially credit an invoice before receiving any payment and leave the invoice as ‘unpaid’, your client will receive automatic reminders for the full amount if you have those set up. Basically you have three options:


  1. Leave the invoice ‘unpaid’, but send the credit note to your client to inform them about the adjusted invoice amount. Wait until you receive the desired payment before putting the invoice to ‘fully paid’.

  2. Leave the invoice ‘unpaid’, but send the credit note to your client to inform them about the adjusted invoice amount. Put the invoice ‘on hold’ (via the three dots next to the invoice info), to not send any automatic reminders to your client. The status of the invoice will remain on ‘unpaid’, so you can follow this up more clearly.

  3. Set the invoice to ‘fully paid’ after issuing the credit note. Your client won’t receive automatic reminders, but you’ll have to follow up on the outstanding amount manually.