About invoice recording

Regardless of how an invoice is generated, it has the same groups of settings, which are described in this topic.

In the Sales invoices (AR301000) window, a customer ledger invoice has the Invoice type, but the settings described below are the same for other types of documents that can be created in this window. The settings of these documents can be grouped as follows:

• Summary:
  
  The settings that are located in the top part of the window define the general information used when the invoice is issued and processed. When you create a new document, the system inserts the current business date and the corresponding post period automatically. When you select the ID of the customer account, the system uses the customer data to automatically fill in most settings needed for processing the invoice; these settings can be manually overridden.
• Processing details:
  
  This group of settings, spread across all tabs of the window except Document details, define how the invoice is to be processed further and how VAT and sales commissions are to be calculated. The system fills in the values for these settings automatically when you select a customer account, but most default settings can be overridden.
• Document details:
  
  Each product or service that you sell to the customer is specified in a separate line of the table on the Document details tab.
  
  An invoice may have one line or multiple lines. Each line includes settings that define the item to be sold, the sales account used for the transaction, the VAT category, and the line discount.

  When you add a line, the system uses values from the customer location to automatically fill in the default sales account, VAT category, and salesperson. If you specify only the amount to be invoiced in the Manual amount column, the system calculates the applicable VAT and commissions, and the invoice is ready for further processing.
  Alternatively, for each line, you can specify the non-stock item or stock item and the quantity to be sold.
  In this case, the system automatically fills in the unit price of the item and then calculates the total price and the applicable taxes and discounts.

  Also, you can upload the details of the invoice from an Excel file.

When you save the document for the first time, the system generates a unique reference number for the invoice in accordance with the number series assigned to invoices on the General settings tab of the Customer ledger preferences (AR101000) window.

The due date of the document is calculated based on the payment terms associated with the customer, as are the days when the cash discount is available. By default, the system associates the document with the payment terms specified for the selected customer account, but you can change the default setting. If you do, the system automatically calculates the new due date and the end of the cash discount period. The system calculates the cash discount amount after you have added at least one line to the document details.
For details on the calculation of the payment period and cash discount period, see: About payment terms.

If the calculation of VAT is configured in your system, the system calculates the applicable taxes for each invoice and records the VAT amounts to the document.

On each line, the system fills in a VAT category automatically. For more information about how this VAT category is set, see: About suggested VAT categories. You can edit the VAT category on each line.

You can view the list of the applied VAT on the VAT details tab of the window.

For each line, you can specify a manual discount offered to a customer, which may be a percent of the total amount or a manually entered amount. The system stores the discount details in the document and does not generate a separate transaction to be posted to General Ledger accounts.

If the Customer and supplier discounts functionality is enabled in the Enable/disable functionalities (CS100000) window, you can configure various types of discounts that can be applied manually or automatically.
The system generates separate transactions for discounts with the Group-level or Document-level types only.
For details, see: Manage discounts.

Commissions can be calculated on a per-invoice or per-payment basis, depending on the Salesperson commission by option selected in the Customer ledger preferences (AR101000) window. Commission is calculated on the invoice amount for all salespersons associated with the invoice. For details on configuring and processing commissions, see: Manage commissions - overview.

When you enter an invoice and the specified customer has open payments, prepayments and credit notes, the system displays these documents on the Applications tab of the Sales invoices (AR301000) window. By default, the system sorts these documents by their document type (credit notes, payments, and prepayments) and reference number in ascending order.

You can manually specify the paid amount in the Amount paid column for the payment document or credit note that you select. Alternatively, you can click Apply automatically in the table toolbar. In this case, the system fills in the Amount paid column, starting with the first document in the list, until the invoice balance is fully paid.

When you release the invoice, the system does the following:

1. Creates and releases application records for the open payment documents that have a non-zero value specified in the Amount paid column.
2. Decreases the balances of the invoice and the applied payments or credit notes.
3. If the balances of the invoice and the applied documents are zero, changes the status of these documents to Closed; otherwise, the status remains Open.

The system excludes payments and prepayments from the list of payment documents that can be applied to the invoice if they meet at least one of the following criteria:

• The open payment document is linked to a sales order. That is, the payment document has a reservation record or multiple reservation records on the Orders to apply tab of the Customer payments (AR302000) window. For details, see About payment reservation for sales orders.
• The open payment document was put on hold. That is, a user selected the Hold check box for the payment document with the Open status in the Customer payments (AR302000) window, and the system changed the document status from Open to Reserved.
  To release the payment from hold, clear the Hold check box.