Open and resolve a customer dispute

When a customer says "the price is wrong" or "half the goods arrived damaged", open a dispute on the invoice. While it is open, that amount gets no reminders and no escalation; the rest of what they owe is still followed up.

Before you start

• Disputes are part of full Collections; in Collections Essentials the Open it button is greyed out.
• You need Collections: work cases (notes, promises, reminders, disputes). To close a dispute with a credit note or a write-off you also need, in Books, Manage sales documents and payments.

Steps

Open a dispute

1. Open the customer's case.
2. Under Open invoices, tick the invoices the dispute is about. To dispute part of an invoice, type the amount in its Amount to dispute box; leave it empty to dispute what is open.
3. Open Open a dispute.
4. Choose the Reason: Price, Quantity or short delivery, Damaged, Not ordered, Billed twice, Tax, Short payment or Other.
5. Pick an Owner to look into it and a Due day for an answer.
6. Add a Note with what the customer said.
7. Select Open it. The invoices are marked Disputed and the case moves to Disputed.

Resolve a dispute

1. Open Collections → Disputes (or the Disputes part of the case).
2. Find the dispute. A Late mark means its due day has passed.
3. In How it ends, choose:
   • Credit note: a Books credit note for the amount, applied to the disputed invoices at once;
   • Replaced or delivered again: the goods were put right, and the amount is owed again;
   • Rejected, with the reason: the invoice stands; a note saying why is required;
   • Written off: see write off a disputed amount.
4. For a credit note or a write-off, type the Amount if it is less than the disputed amount.
5. Add a Note and select Resolve.

Good to know

• Only the disputed amount waits. Reminders skip a disputed invoice; the customer's other invoices follow their reminder sequence as usual. The customer's statement shows the invoice as on hold while you look into it.
• Short payments. When you match a bank payment that is short, you can open a Short payment dispute for the difference in the same step.
• From the portal. A customer can dispute an invoice in your portal. With full Collections, the dispute opens on their case with the reason they gave (see answer portal requests).
• Late disputes appear on Today, and the owner gets one alert.
• A credit note is a real Books document, numbered and posted like any other (see credit notes and refunds).
• The reasons report. The Collections reports count disputes by reason, with the amount and the days they took to resolve.