How do you handle retainage on orders in Cetec ERP?

First, make sure you set your G/L mapping in External Invoice.

Click Admin, click Config Settings, click GL Settings, and scroll down to “External Invoice - Debit Retainage To.”

Choose a receivables account such as Retainage Receivables.

Caveat: You can control your own mappings. There are some situations where it may make more sense to map the retainage debit to a contract liability account on your balance sheet instead of receivables.

Once you’ve selected the account to which you want to map, scroll down and click Submit.

Next, set the retainage percentage in the Quote or Order Header of the customer sales order.

Click the pencil icon, enter the retainage percentage, and click OK.

Notice that the impact to the quote and order will be immediately reflected in the subtotal section; this will flow through to the sales order as well. And when you ship/invoice that sales order, the resulting invoice will reflect the retainage subtracted. Additionally, a customer’s A/R statement will show the total retainage subtracted across all invoices the customer owes.

When it comes time to bill the customer for open retainage,

head to the Invoice List (click Sales > Invoices > Invoice List), click the button at the top of the screen to create a Bill Only or Retainage invoice. After you enter the customer name, select the “Create Retainage” option.

This will generate a screen listing all open unpaid retainage amounts for that customer.

Select which retainages you are billing for and click Submit.

On the next screen, enter a non-inventory part number (e.g. ZZZ Retainage).

(Be sure you have created the non-inventory part you want so that it will show up as an option in this drop-down. If you’re not sure how, see the “How To Create Non-Inventory Parts in Cetec ERP” tutorial video on YouTube.)

Click Update.

On the Invoice List (Sales > Invoices > Invoice List),

you can filter the report to show only those invoices that have had retainage withheld (“Only Withholding Retainage”) or you can filter it to show only those invoices which were themselves retainage invoices (“Only Generating Retainage”).

To see how retainage hits the ledger, click Ledger on the left hand side of the invoice screen.

Now you have a better understanding of how to track retainage in Cetec. For more tips on using Cetec ERP, visit our YouTube channel or the CetecERP.com Support tab.