How to Process and Allocate a Supplier Payment in Law App

In Law App you pay a supplier invoice by creating a supplier payment, then allocating that payment against the supplier’s outstanding invoices. Allocation is the step that links your money to the right invoices and pulls the correct GST through to your Cash BAS, so it’s worth doing properly. This guide uses an ASIC search invoice as the example, but the same steps work for any supplier.

Before you start

Only finalised, outstanding supplier invoices can be allocated to a payment. If an invoice is still in draft, or has already been paid, it won’t appear in the allocation list. Finalise the supplier invoice first if you haven’t already.

Where to find this: Supplier payments live under Accounts → General → Payments. Supplier invoices live under Accounts → General → Supplier Invoices.

Step 1 — Create the payment header

The payment header records who you’re paying and from which bank account. You need a saved header before Law App will let you add any payment lines.

Go to Accounts → General → Payments and click Add Supplier Payment.
Select the supplier (for example, ASIC) and complete the header — payment date, the bank account the money is coming from, and any reference.
Click Save to create the payment header.

The Add Supplier Payment button on the General Payments screen in Law App

A completed supplier payment header in Law App showing the supplier, date and bank account, ready to save

Save the header first. You can’t add payment lines until the header has been saved. If the add-line button is greyed out, the header hasn’t saved yet.

Step 2 — Add the payment line

The line is the actual amount you’re paying. You enter the gross figure here and let Law App handle the GST in the next step.

Click the add (+) button to add a line.
Set the line Type to Supplier.
Enter the gross amount of the payment — the full amount you’re paying, GST included.
Click Save.

A supplier payment line in Law App with the type set to Supplier and the gross amount entered

Supplier is a line type, not a separate kind of payment. This guide starts from Add Supplier Payment, but you don’t have to — you can add a supplier line to any payment by setting the line Type to Supplier. A single payment can combine different line types together.

Don’t worry about the GST amount yet. Leave it as it is. Law App works out the correct GST for you when you allocate the payment to invoices in the next step — you don’t type it in by hand.

You must save before you allocate. The option to allocate invoices only appears once the line has been saved.

Step 3 — Allocate the payment to invoices

Allocating matches your payment to the supplier’s specific invoices. Once you save the line, Law App gives you the option to Allocate.

The Allocate option shown after a supplier payment line has been saved in Law App

When you click Allocate, Law App lists the supplier’s finalised, outstanding invoices, oldest to newest. You can either let it pay them down in order, or pick specific invoices yourself.

Default

Pay oldest first

Law App allocates to the oldest outstanding invoices first, automatically. Leave it as it is to pay the account down in order.

Manual

Pay specific invoices

Click Select only, then tick just the invoices you want to pay. Use this when you’re paying particular invoices rather than the whole balance.

Click Allocate.
Review the list of finalised, outstanding invoices — shown oldest to newest.
Leave the default to pay oldest first, or click Select only and tick the invoices you want to pay.
Click Save to allocate.

The allocation screen in Law App listing outstanding ASIC supplier invoices from oldest to newest, with the Select only option

How the GST is worked out: the GST on the payment comes from the invoices you allocate, not from anything you type. Whatever GST sits on those invoices — some may have it, some may not — is what flows into the payment, so your Cash BAS reports the correct figure.