paymentsfor

Paymentsfor is a term used in financial data modeling and API design to denote the item, service, or obligation that a payment is intended to settle. It is commonly realized as a field, property, or predicate in data schemas and can function across different data representations, including relational databases, JSON-based APIs, and RDF graphs. The spelling "paymentsfor" (lowercase, as a single word) is one naming convention; variations include "paymentsFor" and "payments_for".

In practice, paymentsfor links a payment record to one or more underlying objects such as an invoice, order, subscription, or contract. It helps systems generate accounting entries, reconcile transactions, and provide end customers with a clear record of what they paid for. Depending on the system, it may be a single value or a list of references.

Example in JSON: { "paymentsfor": "INV-1001" } or { "paymentsfor": ["INV-1001","INV-1002"] }. In RDF, paymentsFor can be a predicate linking the payment to the billed item. These representations illustrate how paymentsfor functions as a pointer to the intended purpose or target of the payment.

Paymentsfor is often used alongside fields like amount, currency, payer, and payment method; together they support automated reconciliation and financial reporting. It is distinct from the payment itself, which records the transfer of funds; paymentsfor indicates the purpose or target of the payment.

While widely used in internal schemas, there is no universal standard for the exact name or semantics of paymentsfor. Organizations document its meaning in data dictionaries and aim to align with related standards where possible, such as ISO 20022 for payment messaging.