In some scenarios, merchants may receive a check using Smart Lockbox or make an unapplied payment and wish to apply it to invoices associated with two different customer records in NetSuite. However, this setup is not supported due to limitations within NetSuite and ERP best practices.
Why This Isn't Supported
NetSuite does not allow payments to be applied across multiple unrelated customer records. Here's why:
- Customer-Specific Payments:
In NetSuite, an unapplied payment is tied to a specific customer and can only be used to pay that customer’s invoices. - No Cross-Customer Application:
Payments cannot be split across different customers unless the customers are part of a parent-child hierarchy and specific NetSuite features are enabled.
Parent-Child Customer Hierarchy (Advanced Setup)
In cases where customers are structured under a common parent (using NetSuite's sub-customer architecture):
- The parent customer can receive the unapplied payment.
- The payment can then be manually applied to invoices from child customers. The only requirement is that the child account needs to have the same AR account.
- However, the payment remains tied to the parent in NetSuite’s records — the "Customer" field on the payment will always show the parent, even when it’s applied to child invoices.
⚠️ This requires proper setup in NetSuite. If you're unsure whether this applies to your customer records, consult your NetSuite administrator.
Not Possible for Unrelated Customers
If the customers do not share a parent-child relationship in NetSuite:
- There is no way to split or apply an unapplied payment to two different customers.
- Attempting to do so would go against NetSuite’s design and best practices.