Some workshops take payment from customers in advance, before a job is booked or created in Auxo Workshop. A common example is customers setting aside funds to cover future or unexpected repair costs. This article explains how Auxo Workshop and Xero work together to support this, and what your team needs to know to manage it day to day.
🔀 Two types of advance payment: which applies to you?
There are two different scenarios where a customer pays before an invoice exists. It is important to understand which applies to your situation, as the process is different for each.
A job exists in Auxo Workshop, but the invoice hasn't been generated yet
Auxo Workshop supports taking payment against a job before the invoice is generated. This is called a prepayment in Auxo Workshop. When the invoice is generated, the prepayment is automatically linked to it. This is covered in How to enter a customer's payment.
No job or invoice exists in Auxo Workshop yet
If a customer pays in advance before any job has been created in Auxo Workshop, for example to set aside funds for future or unexpected work, that payment cannot be held in Auxo Workshop. This scenario is what this article covers.
💳 Why this scenario requires Xero
Auxo Workshop tracks payments at the individual invoice level only. It does not hold a customer's overall account balance or standing credit. There is no way to record a payment in Auxo Workshop that is not attached to a specific job or invoice.
For advance payments made before any job exists, the payment needs to be recorded and managed in Xero. Xero tracks full debtor balances and supports allocating customer credits to invoices when they are raised. We recommend speaking with your accountant or Xero partner when setting this up for the first time, as they can help you determine the right process and account coding for your business.
🔄 The end-to-end workflow
Once an advance payment has been recorded in Xero against the customer, the workflow when the customer eventually comes in for work is:
Create and complete the job in Auxo Workshop as normal
Invoice the job in Auxo Workshop — the invoice syncs to Xero automatically
Someone with Xero access allocates the advance payment in Xero to that invoice
Auxo Workshop picks up the payment via the sync and the outstanding balance on the invoice updates accordingly
Confirming the payment has synced into Auxo Workshop
On the job:
Once the payment has synced, it will appear in the invoice footer in Auxo Workshop, showing the amount paid and that it came through from Xero:
On the Invoice List:
The invoice status in the Invoice List will also update to reflect the payment — showing as Paid, Partially Paid, or Not Paid depending on how much of the advance payment was allocated:
⚠️ Important: Do not move or reallocate payments between invoices in Xero. If an allocation needs to be corrected, delete the payment in Xero and re-enter it against the correct invoice. Moving payments between invoices can cause paid/unpaid status mismatches between Xero and Auxo Workshop.
👁️ Visibility of advance payments in Auxo Workshop
Because the customer's credit balance lives in Xero, staff working in Auxo Workshop will not have visibility of advance payments or available credit before an invoice exists. Auxo Workshop only shows the invoice amount and its outstanding balance once an invoice has been generated.
Workshops running customer credit accounts in this way will need someone with Xero access available to track balances and allocate credits when invoices are raised.