Record a settlement (lower amount)

A settlement is a money agreement you already made with the customer: they will pay less than the face (or remaining) amount. It is not “mark paid for free,” and it is not a payment. Recovered totals count only payment rows against the agreed amount — never the write-off.

Prerequisites

• Pro or higher. Refusal if you are below that plan: “Settlements are on Pro and above. Existing settlements stay readable on every plan.”
• The invoice still has a remaining balance and is not already Paid / Settled / written off / with an agency.
• You negotiated the lower amount outside PayBlah. There is no customer-portal “offer a settlement” in this version.

How to record

1. Open the invoice.
2. Press Record settlement in the action strip. The panel slides down.
3. Read the help line. It names the face (full invoice or remaining balance after part payments) and the floor: “Write-off is never counted as recovered. Minimum agreed: [n]% of face.” The default floor is 50%.
4. Enter Agreed amount (required).
5. Optionally enter Written off (optional). If you leave it blank, write-off is face minus agreed.
6. Enter Who agreed (placeholder: “Customer contact name”).
7. Enter Reason (placeholder: “e.g. Goods short — goodwill”).
8. Press Record Settlement (that is the submit label — title case, different from the action-strip button).

If the panel says Settlement Proposed

When a second person must accept, the first save does not write off money and does not stop chasing. You see Settlement Proposed with Agreed and Written off, and a different user presses Accept Settlement. Flash after propose: “Settlement proposed on [invoice] — nothing written off until it is accepted.” After accept: “[invoice] settlement applied — chasing stopped. State is Settled, not Paid.”

Expected result (applied settlement)

• Flash: “[invoice] settled — agreed [amount], wrote off [amount]. Chasing stopped. Not marked paid.”
• Invoice badge Settled — never quietly Paid.
• The panel becomes Settlement On File with Agreed, Written off, and Agreed by, plus: “Recovered totals only count money paid against the agreed amount — not the write-off.”
• Chasing on that invoice stops. Later payments count toward the agreed amount only.
• If a dispute was still open on that invoice, it leaves Activity → Disputes as part of applying the settlement. You do not also need Close dispute for that invoice. (Closing a dispute with the Settled radio first is the other order: that radio still does not write the money.)

What you will not find on the page

• There is no Reverse settlement button on the invoice, in Activity, or in Settings. An Admin-only POST exists for support corrections; it is not a tenant control, so this guide does not walk it.
• Nothing auto-writes off a balance after a number of days. Any later suggestion is a proposal a person must accept.
• Do not use Mark paid for the written-off slice. That would invent recovered money.

If something goes wrong

• Record settlement missing — you are below Pro, the invoice has no remaining balance, or it is already in a money-terminal state. Upgrade rather than faking a full payment.
• “Enter the agreed amount and the amount written off.” — the amounts did not parse.
• “Settlement does not reconcile” — agreed plus written off must equal the face the panel named, exactly.
• “Agreed amount is below the floor of [n]% of face” — raise the agreed amount or change the agreement.
• “Agreed amount cannot be less than money already paid” — you cannot settle below what is already on the payment record.
• “already has an active settlement” — the on-file row is the record. There is no tenant button to replace it.
• “Settlements are turned off in Settings.” — the feature flag is off. There is no settlement pane on Settings today; contact Support rather than inventing a toggle.