Record a payment from a member

Record a payment from a member

Not every payment goes through the app. A member may pay you by bank transfer straight into the syndicate account, or hand over cash. Recording it here clears the charges it covers and puts a dated entry on the member’s payment history, so the ledger matches the bank.

This is the route to use when your syndicate has not connected a payment account yet. It needs no payment provider, no card, and no Direct Debit mandate.

Before you start

• You must be an admin (treasurer counts as admin).
• You must be online. Recording a payment writes to the financial ledger.
• Know the amount the member actually paid. You record the charges the payment covers, and Syndik8 checks the total against them.
• If the member holds a credit, the amount to collect is less than their charges. The screen works this out for you — see credits on the account below.

Steps

1. Open the syndicate and go to Members.
2. Tap the member’s row to open their drilldown. Route: /syndicates/:syndicateId/members/:membershipId.
3. Under Balance you see what the member owes, or that they are settled up.
4. Tap Record a payment. Their outstanding charges open. Route: /syndicates/:syndicateId/members/:membershipId/charges.
5. Choose what the payment covers:
   • To record a payment covering everything outstanding, tap Record payment of £X at the top. That figure is the net: the member’s charges less any credit they hold.
   • To record a payment covering a single charge, tap Record payment on that charge’s row. A single row is recorded gross, at its own amount.
6. Confirm in the Record payment? dialog. It names the member and the amount, so check both before confirming. If the payment also uses up a credit, the dialog says how much.
7. You see Payment recorded. The charges disappear from the outstanding list, the member’s balance drops by the amount, and the payment appears on their payment history as an External payment.

What gets recorded

Each recorded payment writes one settlement carrying two names:

• the member whose charges it clears, and
• the admin who recorded it.

Both are kept, so it is always clear who logged the payment and on whose behalf. Nothing else about the member’s finances changes.

Credits on the account

A member can hold a credit — money the syndicate owes them, most often from a charge that was corrected downwards after they had already paid it. A credit sits on the ledger as a negative row until something nets it off.

Record payment of £X nets it off. A member with £200 of charges and a £30 credit is asked for £170, not £200. This matches what a Direct Debit would draw and what the member’s own Pay All would collect, so the three routes cannot arrive at different answers about the same account.

The credit is listed with the charges, marked Credit, and the total carries a line saying how much credit is in it. That is there so you can see why the figure is lower than the charges above it.

Recording the payment uses the credit up. It is cleared alongside the charges it was netted against, not left behind to come off the next bill as well. There is nothing to do about this, but it is worth knowing before you confirm: the dialog names the amount of credit involved.

A credit carries no Record payment button of its own. There is no money to receive against it.

When the credit covers everything

If the member’s credits equal or exceed their charges, there is no positive amount to collect, and Record payment of £X is replaced by Nothing to collect — the credits cover everything outstanding. Nothing has gone wrong: the syndicate is not owed anything by this member right now, so there is no cash payment to log. The credit is set against their charges when a collection runs, or against whatever they are charged next.

This is not a refund. Sending money back to a member goes through Refund or correct a payment, a separate action.

Individual charges keep their own Record payment button in this situation. If the member genuinely handed over cash for one specific flight, record that row and their credit stays intact — the same choice the member has on their own balance screen.

Credits another payment has already reserved

A credit already reserved by a payment in flight is left out of the netting, exactly as a reserved charge is. It carries the same label as a charge in that state, and the total is calculated without it. Counting it would ask you for less than the charges being recorded actually come to, and the recording would be refused.

Charges another payment has already reserved

Starting any payment reserves the charges it covers, and a reserved charge is listed with a label and left out of the payment you record. The header total and the Record payment of £X button show only what is left. This is deliberate, and it is enforced by the ledger rather than by the screen: recording a payment against a charge something else is already collecting would take the same money twice, and the attempt is refused outright.

Which label it carries tells you what to do about it.

Collection in progress means something is already collecting it that the member cannot finish themselves — most often a Direct Debit, but equally a card payment that has gone past the point where retrying is theirs to do. Nothing is needed from you: it clears on its own when the collection completes, and if the collection fails the charge comes back into the settleable list.

Card payment not finished means the member started a card payment and it was never confirmed. This one does not reliably clear by itself. The member still has a Pay button on their own balance screen, and finishing that payment is what frees the charge. If they have handed you cash instead, ask them to open My Balance and complete or abandon the card payment — once it resolves, reopen their charges and the row will be recordable.

A charge whose card payment has been handed to the bank to clear shows Collection in progress rather than this, because there is nothing for the member to finish.

Recording a payment for yourself

If you are an admin and the charges are your own, use My Balance instead. Your own outstanding charges carry a Mark Paid action on the admin menu there, alongside the ordinary payment options. The Balance section on the member drilldown is only shown when you are looking at somebody else.

Offline behaviour

Recording a payment is deliberately online-only. It writes to the ledger, and money conflicts are not something the app will resolve for you later. Attempting it without a connection fails and nothing is written; try again once you are back online.

If it goes wrong

• “Couldn’t record the payment” followed by a message about transactions being missing, already resolved, or already in flight: something changed since the list loaded, most often a payment claiming a charge — a Direct Debit collection, or the member starting one of their own — or another admin recording the same payment. Go back and reopen the member’s charges to see the current position.
• “Couldn’t record the payment” with a permission message: you are not an admin of this syndicate. Ask an admin to record it.
• “Only a syndicate admin can record a payment for another member.”: the same thing, seen when the charges screen is opened directly.
• “Couldn’t record the payment: This syndicate is closed and read-only.” The syndicate has been closed, and a closed syndicate’s ledger is frozen for everyone, admins included. Nothing was recorded. A syndicate cannot be closed while anyone still owes a balance, so a payment arriving after closure is unusual: check it is not a duplicate of one already settled before the close. If the money genuinely needs to land, reinstate the syndicate inside its retention window, record the payment, then close it again. See close a syndicate.
• The syndicate is over the free plan and read-only. Recording a payment still works. That is deliberate: settling a member up is one of the steps a syndicate needs in order to trim back within the plan, so this state allows it even though it refuses new charges. See bring a syndicate within the free plan.
• You recorded a payment that never arrived. Undo it from Admin → Payments → Reversals: choose the payment, keep Reverse the settlement, and confirm. No money is sent anywhere — there was none at the payment provider to send — and the charges go back to being owed. The member gets a Payment corrected notice saying their balance has gone up by that amount and that no money has moved, so tell them before they read it if the mistake was yours. See Refund or correct a payment.

See also

• Member balance: how a member’s running balance is computed
• Payment history: where the recorded payment appears
• Refund or correct a payment: undoing a payment recorded in error
• Pay your balance: the member-facing route when a payment account is connected
• Grace period and read-only: which read-only situations still allow a payment to be recorded