Glossary · Invoices and billing
Remittance advice
A remittance advice is a note from a customer listing which invoices a payment covers, so the supplier can match the money correctly.
When a customer pays several invoices in one transfer, or part of one, a remittance advice tells the supplier what the payment is for: invoice numbers, the amount paid against each and any deductions.
Without it, a lump sum arrives with a vague reference and someone has to work out what it settles. Until then the cash sits as unapplied cash and the invoices it actually paid still look overdue — which is how customers end up receiving reminders for invoices they have paid.
Ask larger customers to send remittance advice to a single email address, and ask everyone to use the invoice number as the payment reference so single-invoice payments match themselves.
Example
A client pays €14,600 in one transfer. The remittance advice shows it covers INV-0139 (€6,600) and INV-0142 (€8,000), so both are marked paid the same day.