Payments

The Payments page shows all payment transactions across your customer base.

Payments Page

Navigate to Payments in the sidebar.

Summary Widget

Top-level cards that break down the payments matching your filters (search, customer, date and type). Each card shows the transaction count and the total amount for its category:

• E-Payments: Electronic payments — credit card, PayPal, etc.
• Bank / Manual: Manually recorded payments (wire, check) and manual charges
• Credits: Goodwill and promotional credits applied to the balance
• Refunds: Payments returned to the customer

Each category is distinct — a transaction is only ever counted in one card. Transactions recorded via Adjust Balance on a customer map to the summary as follows: a Payment or Manual charge operation counts toward Bank / Manual, a Credit operation counts toward Credits, and a Refund counts toward Refunds (see Balance Adjustments below).

The four cards are also the values of the Type filter. Picking one narrows the list and the cards together. The card you picked is highlighted and totals the list below it, and the other three read zero, because none of their transactions are in the list. Set the filter back to All Types for the full breakdown.

Payment Table

Each row includes:

• Time — when the transaction was recorded
• Customer — company or contact name, with the customer ID beneath it
• Type — Payment, Credit, Charge or Refund (see Payment Types below)
• Method, the billing backend's own name for the operation, with an icon per method. Adjustment types (Manual Payment, Manual Charge, Manual Credit, Refund, Rounding) each render their own glyph; an electronic payment always reads Payment, since the card brand is not recorded on this record
• Comment — the note saved with the transaction
• Amount

Filtering

• Search: By the transaction comment. Type a word from the Comment column to find that transaction. A number finds both the record whose Reference ID carries it (the pay_ or crd_ value shown when no gateway reference exists) and every transaction whose comment shows that number. A comment written in any script is searchable, Hindi and Cyrillic included. An accent over an English letter is ignored, so cafe finds café and café finds cafe. For the same reason, searching a single accented letter matches every transaction whose comment shows the plain one. A letter that is not an English one with an accent, such as Ł or đ, is matched as itself. A search runs inside the selected date range, so widen the range to reach an older transaction. To narrow by customer, use the customer filter next to it
• Customer filter: Show payments for a specific customer. Hover an option to see the full name and customer ID; type either (even a fragment of the ID) to narrow the list
• Type filter: Show one summary card's category only. Bank / Manual includes manual charges, exactly as the card does
• Date range: Filter by payment date

There is no status filter. This page lists money that has already moved, so every entry on it is settled. A payment still being processed lives in your payment gateway, not here.

Payment Details

Click any payment row to see:

• Full transaction details, including the Reference ID — the payment gateway's reference where one exists, otherwise the transaction's own unique record identifier
• The Method shown in the table, and the transaction's type as the badge at the top of the panel
• Processing timestamps
• Related invoice (if applicable)

Exporting Payments

You can export the payments list using the Export button in the search toolbar:

• Export as CSV: Downloads a spreadsheet containing all columns for the currently filtered payments (complete with human-friendly formatted values, method labels, and timestamps).
• Export as JSON: Downloads raw transaction records in a structured JSON file.

Payment Types

The Type column on the Payments page is derived from two underlying fields:

• record_type — payment or credit
• method_type — electronic / manual / refund / charge

The rows below are read in order, and the order is what keeps a manual charge out of Credits:

Displayed label	When it applies
Charge	method_type=charge — a manual charge that debits the customer (e.g. an offline service or penalty). Counted under Bank / Manual in the summary, not under Credits.
Credit	record_type=credit — a manual balance credit added to the customer (e.g. promotional credit, overpayment correction)
Refund	method_type=refund — money returned to the customer. Recorded through Adjust Balance (see below), or arriving from your payment gateway.
Payment	everything else: method_type=electronic (card, PayPal, etc.) or manual (check, wire, etc.)

Recording Manual Payments

If a customer pays outside the system (bank transfer, check, etc.):

1. Go to the customer's detail page
2. Click Adjust Balance
3. Select Payment
4. Enter the amount and payment reference
5. Submit

This records the payment and updates the customer's balance.

Balance Adjustments

Balance adjustments are manually recorded transactions that affect a customer's balance. When adjusting a customer's balance in the UI, you can choose from the following operations:

• Manual charge: Charge the customer for an out-of-band service or fee (increases the balance). For postpaid clients, this increases what they owe; for prepaid clients, this decreases their available credit (moves the balance closer to 0).
• Payment: Record a payment received outside the normal payment flow (decreases the balance). For postpaid clients, this reduces what they owe; for prepaid clients, this increases their available credit (makes the balance more negative).
• Credit: Apply a goodwill credit or promotional adjustment (decreases the balance). For postpaid clients, this reduces what they owe; for prepaid clients, this increases their available credit (makes the balance more negative). A credit is not the way to record a refund: it moves the balance the other way and leaves the customer's payments untouched.
• Refund: Record money you have returned to the customer outside PortaAIM (increases the balance). For postpaid clients, this increases what they owe; for prepaid clients, it reduces their available funds.

The Amount takes up to five decimal places, so a manual charge or a credit can be a fraction of a cent. A payment or a refund takes only as many decimal places as the customer's currency has, two for USD and none for JPY; the form says so under the amount if you go past that.

Every adjustment is recorded with a Reason / note, which the customer might see. The form asks for at least 3 characters and stops at 100. The note appears as the transaction's Comment.

Recording a Refund

Send the money as you normally would — a bank transfer, cash, or a refund issued by whoever took the payment — then record it here so the customer's balance and their payment history match reality.

A refund returns money the customer has paid, so it is limited to their payments, less anything already refunded. The sheet shows that amount beside the Amount field and will not accept more; when a customer has nothing left to refund, the operation is unavailable and says so. Money that never arrived as a payment — funds a customer was opened with, or a credit you applied — cannot be refunded.

You do not choose which payment is returned. The billing backend allocates the amount across the customer's payments itself, most recent first, and marks them refunded.

The amount shown is what the customer's payments allow. Limits on your own administrator account can still apply, so a refund below that figure may be refused; the message says what happened.