Invoices

You’ll need: Invoices — if you cannot see these, the module may be switched off for your business or outside your permissions. An administrator can change either.

An invoice is the document that says what is owed. Of everything in this course it is the one your accounts, your customer’s accounts and, eventually, an auditor all key off.

What it holds

An invoice number and invoice date, a due date, and the client it is addressed to. From location and business location say who is issuing it. Invoice title describes it.

Invoice items are the lines. Currency, payment options and payment terms cover the money. Notes carry the rest.

And the links: order id, sales order, quote, purchase order. These are what make an invoice traceable rather than a figure that appeared from nowhere.

For physical goods, the invoice comes last

This is the part that surprises people arriving from other systems, and it is the default rather than a setting somebody turned on.

An invoice must not change. An order changes right up to dispatch. So when an order carries physical goods, the invoice is raised after fulfilment, for what actually went out — and any money the customer paid meanwhile was held as an advance against the order, which is applied to the invoice when it appears.

The practical consequences:

• Do not go looking for an invoice on a freshly paid order. There is not one yet, and that is correct.
• The invoice, when it comes, reflects what shipped rather than what was ordered — which is the whole point.
• An invoice raised this way can show as already paid with no payment recorded against it, because the advance was applied rather than re-banked.

Memberships, tickets and credit top-ups are the exception: their invoice is what delivers them, so it is raised at payment.

Creating from an order

An order can be converted directly into an invoice, which carries the lines across and keeps the link. If the customer is not yet in your address book, the conversion creates the contact — so a website order from a stranger becomes a proper customer record without anybody retyping a phone number.

That is the path to use. Raising a fresh invoice and typing the same lines produces a document that looks right and knows nothing about where it came from.

Due date is a decision, not a formality

The due date is what makes an invoice chase-able. “Payment terms: 30 days” written in a note is prose; a due date is data, and it is what lets you find everything overdue without reading each invoice.

If you extend terms for a customer, change the due date rather than leaving it and remembering. Your future self is not going to remember.

Invoice items are not the product record

The lines on an invoice carry their own description, quantity, unit price and any discount. They were taken from your catalogue when the invoice was raised, and they do not change afterwards.

That is correct and important: an invoice must say what was charged at the time. If a product’s price rises next month, last month’s invoice is not supposed to move. Never expect a change in the catalogue to update an issued invoice, and never try to make it.

Then payment

An invoice is not settled by existing. Money is recorded against it, which is the next lesson.

Try it

On staging.feeprime.com, convert an order to an invoice and check the link is there. Then change the product’s price in the catalogue and confirm the invoice is unmoved. That immovability is a feature, and seeing it once removes the worry.