As long as there are prepayment funds available in the customer's account, any purchase can be paid for with prepayment dollars. It is important to remember that spending prepaid dollars and drawing down from work orders are two separate things - they often happen together, but they don't have to.
You can find more information on how work orders are used (for planning both prepaid and non-prepaid purchases) by reading about Linking to Existing Work Orders on Invoices and Importing Items into Invoices. For more information on how to set up an invoice to record a purchase (prepaid or not), read about Invoices.
Note
Any line on an invoice that specifies that it is prepaid (i.e. you have checked the Prepay? checkbox for that product) will draw from prepayment funds.
Any line on an invoice that is linked to a work order (i.e. a work order reference is shown in the WO Ref column for that product) will add to the quantity taken from that work order.
A prepaid invoice line can be linked to an work order, but doesn't have to be.
An invoice line that is linked to a work order can be prepaid, but doesn't have to be.
Invoice lines can be prepaid, linked to a work order, or both or neither.
Associated Products inherit the prepay status of the parent product, unless flagged as Don't prepay on Invoice (will not be prepaid even if the parent product is) or linked to a work order (inherits prepay status from work order).
Tip
The View Prepayment Report button the invoice toolbar will give you a quick overview of the customer's planned and actual prepayment purchases.
To spend prepayment dollars on an invoice, you just need to make sure that the Prepay? checkbox is checked for the product row. This will happen automatically when you link to or import from a work order row that was specified as prepaid, as long as there are enough prepayment dollars in the customer's account to cover the purchase. If you decide to spend prepayment dollars on an item that is not linked to a prepaid work order row:
Select a row on the invoice purchases grid that is not currently flagged as prepaid.
Edit the invoice row.
(double click to open the row; right click and choose Edit Row; or click Edit Row below the grid)
Check Prepay?
Update the invoice row.
Prepayment Remaining at the bottom left of the Invoice window displays the amount of prepayment funds this customer has available. This total is updated to include the prepaid items on the current invoice, so it is "up to the minute" unless someone else is working with the same customer's data in the background. A final check is always made right before the invoice is saved to ensure that prepayment funds are never overdrawn.
To use up the available prepayment dollars against a particular line on the invoice:
Select a row on the invoice purchases grid that is not currently flagged as prepaid.
Click Use Remaining Prepayments.
If you have set up a default prepaid price level, you may be asked if you wish to change the price of the product to use the default prepaid price. If you are asked, make your selection and proceed.
If there were enough prepayment funds to cover the entire amount, the row is checked as prepaid for you.
If there were not enough prepayment funds to cover the entire amount, you will be prompted as to how to proceed with the non-prepaid portion: you can use the same price as for the prepaid portion, or use current price. Make your selection and proceed.
You will end up with one row that is flagged as prepaid and uses up the remaining prepayment funds, and one that is not prepaid and will be counted against the customer's regular funds.
If there are not enough prepayment funds available to prepay for an entire blend quantity - including blend charges if applicable - Use Remaining Prepayment will not flag the blend charges as prepaid. You'll need to manually flag the blend charges as prepaid using the Edit Charges button (located right next to the Exit button) on the invoice toolbar.
When you import or link to a prepaid blend on a work order (i.e. the whole blend is on the work order and flagged as prepaid, rather than having the individual blend products listed on the work order), prepayment behaves as if you were linking to a prepaid straight product: the blend row on the invoice will be set to prepaid if there are enough funds available to cover the purchase, otherwise it will be set to use regular funds. You can click Use Remaining Prepayment to spend the customer's remaining prepayment funds on the blend and split the line, or you can edit the blend and select which individual products to prepay.