Enter in this field the number of days you want to elapse between finance charges. The charge period indicates how often (in interval of days) you will apply finance charges for past-due balances.  You can apply a finance charge to a sales invoice or to an account balance, only once during the finance charge period.  If you will apply finance charges on a monthly basis, accept the default value of 30 days.

The system counts each charge period from the last day of the prior charge period, not from the date you enter the finance charges.  If you miss applying charges against a customer’s balance for one or more periods, when you finally apply the charges the system will apply the charges only against the balance(s) for the oldest uncharged period.

Enter in this field the minimum statement or sales invoice balance that will be used by system to assess whether or not a customer's balance will be subject to finance charges.  Any amount below this value will not be charged by the system.  The label of this field changes depending upon the option you chose in the Charge on area of this tab.

Example: If the minimum is set at $10 and the past-due balance is $9.99 or less, no finance charge will be computed; but if the balance is $10 or more, a finance charge will be computed on the entire balance, not just the amount over $10.  The minimum amount can be set at (0) zero if you do not want exempt any amount of past-due sales invoices to be exempt from finance charges.

Enter in this field the charge rate or fixed charge to be applied against the past-due sales invoices or statement balance.  This field will be labeled either Charge % or Fixed Charge Amount, depending on the option you chose in the Apply by area in this tab.

If you specified that finance charges are to be applied as a percentage of past-due balances, provide the percentage rate applicable to one period.  The rate for one period is the annual rate divided by the number of periods in a year.  For example, if the rate of finance charge on past-due balances is to be 18% per year, and you will charge on a monthly basis (30-day period), 18% divided by 12 months would give a periodic rate of 1.5%.  If you select in the Apply by area to allocate or apply finance charges as a fixed amount, enter the fixed amount that is to be applied against past-due balances.

Enter in this field the minimum amount of finance charge to be applied against each past-due balance.  The system will apply whichever is greater; the minimum charge amount or the charge it calculates using the percentage rate.  If you do not want to set a minimum level of charge, set this value to zero.  This field will not appear if you choose to apply a fixed amount for finance charges.

Example:  The customer’s past-due sales invoice amount is $500 and the minimum charge amount is $100 while the charge rate is 10%.  The finance charge is supposed to be equal to the product of the sales invoice amount and the charge rate ($500x10%), which is $50; however, since the minimum charge amount is $100, the finance charge that will be applied to the customer’s past-due sales invoice is $100 instead of $50.

Select this option if you want the system to apply the finance charge to the entire sum of the customer’s past-due sales invoice balances.

Select this option if you want the program to apply a separate charge against each past-due sales invoice for each period.

Select this option if you want the system to apply finance charges as a percentage of customer’s past-due balances.

Select this option if you want the system to disregard the amount of each sales invoice or statement balance and apply the same flat charge against each customer’s past-due balance.

Mark this checkbox if you want finance charges to be compounded.  This sets the system to calculate finance charges on past-due balances that include any finance charges that were previously applied and remain outstanding.  Omit the check mark if you do not want to charge on outstanding finance charges.

Mark this checkbox if you want the system to apply payments against outstanding finance charges before it applies them against the rest of the outstanding balance; otherwise, omit the check mark.