Hello,
Does anyone know if it is possible to choose how different line items are paid for?
We have different payment methods for the different types of funding a school may receive to cover parts of their admission costs. It is typical for a school to have two or more of these fundings associated with their visit as well as regular payments like credit card, check or cash.
For example, if school ABC is visiting and they have been awarded two funds to cover their entire visit. The first fund only covers their general admission and admittance to a special exhibit. The second fund covers their scheduled educational program. This order is made ahead of time in our reservations office and when they arrive the cashier only updates their numbers as needed and applies the payment(s) to the order. As far as I know when taking payment this way there is no way to guarantee that a specific line item is being paid for with the "correct" payment method. This has posed a problem for us when we try to pull reports for what funds have covered what.
Particularly when we run Income by Payment Method and Performance Payment Summary to track our funding usage between admission and educational programs we have found that the numbers are unreliable because payment amounts are distributed randomly between line items. Overall totals for the amount of funding used is correct but when running reports to look at their designations and/or seasons the numbers get mixed.
There really isn't a hard link between payments on an order and a line item product — Tessitura just ensures that the payments and costs within a single order balance out to zero, and assigns transactions for payments and line items sequentially. This has some logic to it when you consider that payments on an order could be split unevenly between any number of different payment methods, could move money to a gift certificate, or pay from on-account house credit all at the same time.
If you are trying to reconcile using canned reports, your only option might be to split your line items into two separate orders so that the payment transactions are separated. A custom report alternative could be something that matches certain kinds of line items with certain kinds of payment methods within an order so you know your payment method didn't exceed the amount assigned to the line item it is eligible for.