Dunning and incoming payments at a wine business

Wine is sold to restaurants and the trade on invoice, and between delivery and money lie thirty days, sometimes more. Most customers pay on time. For the rest you need two things: a clear view of what is open, and a fixed routine for chasing it. This guide covers both and shows how it works in Vinosoft.

Booking incoming payments

An invoice is only done once the payment is booked on it. Vinosoft has three ways to do that:

1. From the bank file. Upload the camt.054 file from your e-banking under Invoices → Invoiced with XML (camt.054) / ESR import. Vinosoft matches each payment to its invoice by the QR reference, shows a preview with warnings — invoice not found, already paid, duplicate number — and books once you confirm. This requires your invoices to go out with a QR bill and QR reference.
2. From an Excel list. Import payments takes payments from a spreadsheet with invoice number, currency and amount.
3. By hand. On the invoice with Register payment, one at a time or for several invoices at once.

If a customer pays only part, the invoice stays open with the status Partially paid. If they deduct an early-payment discount or the bank keeps a fee, record the rest as its own line with the type Cash discount or Bank charges — the invoice then closes as paid and the deduction is booked correctly. With financial accounting, each payment creates the booking from the debtor account to the bank account you name.

Payment links for quick payers

With a payment link, your customer pays an invoice online using the payment methods of your provider (Payrexx, PostFinance Checkout, Saferpay, Wallee or PayPal). Vinosoft shows the incoming money on the invoice and tells you by email; it is booked with one click, not on its own. That way no unattended process moves money in your books.

Keeping track

On the Invoiced tab the date of every overdue invoice turns red. The Outstanding balance list under Statistics shows every unpaid invoice with its remaining amount, due date and reminder level, filtered by customer, currency or cut-off date, and exports to Excel — the list your accountant wants to see at year end. The payment-period analysis shows how many days a customer actually takes.

Four reminder levels

Vinosoft chases in four levels: Payment reminder, First reminder, Second payment reminder and Third payment reminder. Under Configuration → Settings → Terms of payment → Warning levels you set, per level, after how many days it applies and which fee is charged. You write the texts under Configuration → Standard text, once per level and in every language your customers use.

The dunning run itself:

1. Under Invoices → Invoiced, click Create dunning runs. With nothing selected, Vinosoft proposes every overdue invoice.
2. For each invoice choose By email, By post or both, and confirm.
3. Send the emails; download the letters as one PDF and print them.

Each run moves an invoice up exactly one level. Partially paid invoices are not moved up — the rest is better settled in a conversation. Vinosoft does not start a dunning run on its own, but the notification centre reminds you when reminders are due.

A tip: run your reminders on the same day every month, for example the first working day. Your customers learn the rhythm, and no overdue invoice waits more than a month.

The right tone

The first level is called a payment reminder for a reason. A restaurant that has poured your Chasselas for twenty years has usually just overlooked the invoice. Keep the first level friendly and free of charge, the second firm, and save the mention of debt collection for the third.

What Swiss law says

• Default. A customer is generally in default from the reminder; with a firmly agreed payment date, as soon as it passes.
• Default interest. From default the customer owes 5% a year by law, unless something else was agreed. Vinosoft does not calculate default interest; if you want to claim it, work it out and request it separately.
• Reminder fees. You may only charge fees if they were agreed, for example in your terms and conditions. In Vinosoft the fee appears on the reminder but does not increase the invoice's open amount.
• Debt collection. If even the last reminder goes unanswered, you file a debt collection request with the debt enforcement office. Vinosoft does not support this step.

Good to know

Reminders carry no QR payment part of their own; your customer pays with the payment part of the original invoice, and the reference stays the same. To shorten the path, include a payment link. There is no direct bank connection: payments come in through the file you upload.

As of October 2026. The legal notes are not a substitute for legal advice.