A prepayment is a way to get paid for an order before sending it to the customer. Prepayments are mainly used before either the production of the order or before sending the order.
The prepayment amount is usually based on a percentage of the order value - which can be everything from 25% to 100% of the order value.

The reason we use a prepayment and not an invoice is that in it's illegal to send an official invoice to a customer before the products have been shipped. In these cases, we use a prepayment as it's not an official invoice. 

In Traede a prepayment is created based on orders and can be generated automatically or manually based on the way it's set up. 

The flow of handling prepayments in Traede

The flow of handling prepayments in Traede is generally the same if you integrate economic or not.

1. When the customer has received the prepayment they will make the payment to your bank
2. The payment will be booked on the customer's account in your accounting system making the balance negative as you owe the customer products or money
3. The prepayment should now be marked as paid in Traede (this can be done automatically if integrated with economic)
4. The order is fulfilled and shipped to the customer
5. A sales invoice is now made and sent to the customer. This will be booked in your accounting system on the customer's account making the balance even out the negative amount
6. The sales invoice should be evened out by the payment from the customer in the accounting system