Entering Customer Deposits and Payments
Some businesses want to make their customers pay for part of a sale in advance, and in these cases, we can use the NetSuite native transaction known as Customer Deposits.
This is what the default Customer Deposit screen looks like:
Figure 15.3 – A Customer Deposit with the default, native fields
These are just like Customer Payments, except they do not have an Apply list and they are usually tied to a single Sales Order. The system will automatically apply a deposit to an Invoice once that is generated if it was linked to a Sales Order. Deposits are frequently used for larger, more expensive items, and for services work where a business stands to lose money if the customer changes their mind before the work is completed. We had a client once who sold high-end saunas to consumers and businesses, and each cost more than 5,000 USD. The company required a 50% deposit to be made at the time of the sale, and then the balance...
