Record bank transfers as Invoice Ninja payments

1. Open Payments and create a new payment, or open the invoice and choose More Actions > Mark Paid, which records a payment labelled Manual Entry for the full amount.
2. Pick the client first, because every payment belongs to one, then add the invoices it covers. The amount owing is pre-filled for each invoice and you can lower it for a partial payment.
3. Set Payment Date to the day the money arrived, since reports use that date, then choose a Payment Type and put the bank reference in Transaction Reference.
4. Leave Send Email on if the client should get a payment confirmation, or switch it off.
5. A lump sum for several invoices goes in as one payment with each invoice added in the Invoices section. Repeating this for every transfer is the slow part of Friday afternoon.

Here are this week's incoming bank transfers. Match each one to an open Invoice Ninja invoice by the reference or the exact amount, record the payment with the bank date, and list the lines you could not match.

1. 01

   Read your list

   Your agent takes the bank lines you paste, with date, amount, payer name and reference, and ignores outgoing lines and anything dated before your cutoff.

2. 02

   Find the open invoices

   list_invoices runs with status sent and partial, so the agent sees every invoice with a balance, and list_payments shows what was already recorded for a client so a transfer is never entered twice.

3. 03

   Match in a fixed order

   An invoice number in the reference wins, then an exact balance for the named client. Two invoices with the same balance, or a payer name that fits two clients, goes to the unmatched list instead of a guess.

4. 04

   Record each payment

   record_payment uses the bank date as Payment Date, sets the Payment Type and Transaction Reference, and applies the amount to the invoice. A smaller amount leaves the invoice in Partial; a larger one leaves the extra as an unapplied balance. Each call asks for your OK by default.

5. 05

   Report what is left

   Unmatched lines come back with the best candidate invoice and why it failed, so you can decide in one pass.

Bank lines: 5, total 5,580.00 USD
Recorded 4 (4,500.00):
- INV-0034 Northwind Studio, 1,200.00, ref "INV-0034 Oct"
- INV-0039 Kestrel Labs, 2,100.00, exact balance
- INV-0037 Orchard & Finch, 300.00, ref "0037"
- INV-0032 Brightwave Ltd, 900.00, partial, 900.00 still owing
Left for you 1:
- 1,080.00 "J FENWICK": two open invoices could fit

curl -X POST https://cotlet.dev/api/v1/invoice-ninja/invoices/INV-0034/payments \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $COTLET_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"amount":1200,"payment_date":"2026-10-12","payment_type":"Bank Transfer","transaction_reference":"INV-0034 Oct"}'

{
  "payment_number": "0021",
  "client": "Northwind Studio",
  "payment_date": "2026-10-12",
  "payment_type": "Bank Transfer",
  "transaction_reference": "INV-0034 Oct",
  "amount": 1200,
  "status": "Paid",
  "applied_to": [
    {
      "invoice_number": "INV-0034",
      "amount": 1200
    }
  ],
  "invoice_status": "paid",
  "invoice_balance": 0,
  "confirmation_email": true
}

MCP: add https://cotlet.dev/mcp/v1 with the same key; the call is invoice_ninja_write → record_payment. Example data.

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