Allow payments to be allocated directly to an Estimate Item/Service, rather than only to an account or invoice. This solves the conundrum of 50% deposits and pre-payments.

The payment would remain attached to that Item/Service throughout its lifecycle:

Estimate Created

→ Estimate Accepted

→ Payment Collected

→ Job Scheduled

→ Job Completed

→ Invoice Generated

When the invoice is eventually generated from that Item/Service, the attached payment would automatically transfer to the invoice.

Until that invoice exists, the funds should be reserved exclusively for that Item/Service and should not be available to satisfy unrelated invoices on the customer's account.

Administrators should also have the ability to modify the allocation before the payment is applied to an invoice. This would allow them to:

Remove the payment allocation and convert it back into a general account credit.

Reallocate the payment to a different Item/Service if it was initially assigned incorrectly.

Adjust allocations as estimates change or customer requests evolve.

This ensures the system remains flexible while preserving the intent of customer prepayments.

Love Always,

Brian Rand