Hi Tony

The proper way to do this is to cut the check out of Payables as a "prepayment", which gives the vendor a credit balance (Dr. Payables, Cr. Cash).

Then when the invoice comes in and is posted in Payables, it is applied against the prepayment; in a perfect world they would match but in your client's world you would then do an adjustment to write off the balance.

This may seem like a lot of steps but it is the officially proper sequence.

Steve