Paying a supplier or getting paid by a client rarely happens for the exact number on the invoice or bill. A bank transfer costs a little to send. A MoMo withdrawal costs a little to take out. A client sending money sometimes rounds up to cover a charge you’ll pay later. None of that is unusual — but it used to be surprisingly easy for that small extra amount to quietly throw off what your books said you actually owed, or were actually owed. Two small fields now exist specifically to stop that from happening.
Where the confusion used to creep in
Picture a GHS 200 bill. You pay it by bank transfer, and the bank takes GHS 2.50 to move the money, so GHS 202.50 leaves your account. If you simply typed 202.50 into the payment amount, your books would show the supplier as having been paid GHS 202.50 — GHS 2.50 more than the bill ever actually said you owed them. The bill would look overpaid, or the extra GHS 2.50 would sit there unexplained. The same thing happens in reverse on the invoice side: a client sends a little extra to cover a withdrawal charge you’ll pay when you take the money out, and suddenly it looks like they overpaid for goods or services that were only ever priced at the original amount.
Two small fields, one on each side
When you record a bill payment, there’s an optional Payment Fee field alongside the payment amount — enter whatever the bank or MoMo charge came to, and it’s recorded as its own Bank Charges expense, separate from what the supplier was actually paid. When you record an invoice payment, the equivalent is an optional Extra Received field — enter whatever the client sent above the invoice total, and it’s recorded as its own Other Income, separate from what the invoice itself was for.
Why it’s tracked separately instead of just added in
A bank charge isn’t money paid to your supplier — it’s a cost of doing business with your bank, and it deserves to show up as exactly that in your expense categories, not hidden inside a supplier payment. The same logic runs the other way: money a client sends to cover a future withdrawal fee isn’t payment for the invoice — it’s income of a different kind, and keeping it separate means the invoice itself can still show as paid at exactly what it was issued for, no more and no less.
What you’ll see in your reports
Because each fee is tagged to its own category — Bank Charges or Other Income — it shows up cleanly in Reports as its own line, instead of being buried inside a supplier or client total where it doesn’t belong. Your outstanding balance on the bill or invoice stays accurate throughout, whether it’s fully paid in one go or settled across several partial payments.
Try it next time you record a payment
Both fields are optional — leave them at zero if there was no fee, no harm done. But next time a bank transfer or MoMo withdrawal costs you something to move, or a client rounds up to cover a charge on their end, enter it in the field built for it. It takes a few seconds, and it’s the difference between a bill or invoice that’s accurately marked paid, and one that quietly looks off by a few cedis for reasons you’d have to go dig up later.