Hello there, I read a lot on your forums for the last few weeks since I began a job of proofreading in a software company.

My mission is to transform system messages from low level English to significative/business English. Sometimes I encounter very odd sentences with obscure meanings but this time I am more wondering about a style/grammar issue.

It concerns these two sentences:

1 - Is this payment applying to the customer?

and

2- Does this payment apply to the customer?

I am puzzled for two things. One is that the first one sounds better to my ears. Second I think the first one gives a sense of "on the moment" feeling to the message which would appear as a question while a cashier processes a transaction. It just sounds more accurate to me.

On the other hand: "This payment is applying to the customer." sounds bad.
"Applies" would be correct in that context. And think I was taught not to use "to be" with "ing" in most cases.

Where am I losing it???

Thx,

Adam

It is the customer as the customer. As far as i can tell. The message appears when the cashier tries to use a payment method for a certain transaction.