Payments

WinchWorks records payments. It does not process them. You take money however you already do — your card terminal, a check, cash from the driver — and record what happened here.

Open the invoice and choose Record payment.

What you record

The amount. Part or all of the balance.

The method — check, ACH, card or cash.

The date received.

A reference — check number, terminal receipt, or a note about who handed it over. This is the field to use when the money came from the shop collecting the vehicle rather than from the payer named on the invoice.

An invoice can have as many payments as it needs. It settles when the total is covered.

When a payer pays less than the invoice

This is normal, and it usually is not a problem.

An insurer pays what their agreement covers. Anything above that — storage past their cap, a service they do not cover — is still owed. In most cases it is collected from whoever comes to pick the vehicle up, because they need the vehicle released.

So the usual shape is: two payments, and the invoice settles at full value.

Record the insurer's payment when it arrives, and the balance when it is collected. The invoice closes out at what you billed.

Recording what was denied

When a payer pays less, you can record which lines they cut and why — not covered, above the cap, rate reduced, negotiated, and so on.

This is worth doing. WinchWorks remembers it, and the next time you add that charge for that payer it shows you what happened last time. Over a year that turns into a record of what a carrier actually pays, which is useful when the agreement comes up for renewal.

Recording a denial does not change the balance. The money is still owed until someone pays it or you write it off.

Write-offs

A write-off records money you have decided not to collect.

That is a narrow thing, and narrower than people expect. It is not what you do when an insurer denies a line — that money is normally collected from whoever picks up the vehicle. Reach for a write-off when the money is genuinely not coming: nobody ever collected the vehicle, or you agreed to drop the balance.

To write off, open the invoice and choose Write off balance. You must give a reason, and you can write off part of a balance rather than all of it.

What happens:

• The balance drops by the amount written off
• The invoice stops appearing in what you are owed, in aging, and in reminders
• The reason is kept in the activity log
• The invoice settles once payments plus write-offs cover the total

Owners and office managers can write off. Drivers cannot.

What WinchWorks will not tell you

WinchWorks records what happened. It does not advise on whether a particular charge should be billed, whether a balance should be written off, or how any of this should be treated for tax.

Those are questions for your bookkeeper or accountant, who knows your business and your state. If you ask the in-app assistant one of them, it will pass you to a person rather than guess.