Sales Invoices

A sales invoice is a formal billing document sent to a client requesting payment for goods or services delivered. It records what was sold, the agreed prices, applicable taxes and discounts, and the payment terms. Sales invoices are the financial counterpart of delivery notes — while delivery notes track the physical dispatch of goods, invoices track the financial obligation.

An invoice you create by hand is usually linked to a sales order, and optionally to a delivery note. It can also bill what was never ordered — a service, a deposit, freight — with no order at all (An invoice with no order). A single sales order can generate multiple invoices (e.g., for partial billing or milestone-based invoicing). Invoices raised automatically when a point-of-sale shift closes have no sales order behind them — nothing was ordered, it was sold across a counter — and they stay that way; you can still edit one without inventing an order to attach it to.

Key Concepts

• Sales Invoice — A billing document detailing the items, quantities, prices, taxes, and payment terms for a transaction with a client.
• Invoice Line — An individual item or service on the invoice, with its quantity, unit price, tax rate, and calculated totals.
• Partial Payment — When a client pays part of the invoice amount, the invoice tracks both the paid and outstanding balances separately.
• Amount Due — The remaining balance after subtracting any payments received from the total invoice amount.

Creating a Sales Invoice

To create a new invoice:

1. Navigate to Sales > Invoices in the sidebar.
2. Click New. This opens a new invoice page. (To bill an order’s remaining quantities in one go, prefer the Create Invoice button on the sales order itself — it pre-fills the lines for you.)
3. Fill in the details:
   • Invoice Number — A unique identifier for this invoice (e.g., INV-2026-0045).
   • Sales Order — The sales order this invoice bills, if there is one. Leave it empty to bill something nobody ordered.
   • Delivery Note — Optionally link to a specific delivery note.
   • Client — The client being billed. With a sales order picked, it is the order’s client and cannot be changed.
   • Billing Address — The address for the invoice.
   • Invoice Date — The date the invoice is issued.
   • Due Date — When payment is expected. It opens on the date your terms give, counted from the invoice date: the invoice’s payment terms, else the client’s own, else 30 days. It moves with the invoice date and the terms until you type a date of your own, which is then kept.
   • Payment Terms — The agreed payment conditions (e.g., Net 30, Net 60). They open on the sales order’s terms, else on the client’s own.
   • Currency — The billing currency. With a sales order picked, it is the order’s currency and cannot be changed.
   • Notes — Any comments visible to the client.
   • Internal Notes — Private notes for your team only.
4. Press Add above the Lines, beside the form. The invoice is saved in Draft status with its number, and its first line opens, ready to fill in (Adding lines before you save). To add the lines later, click Save instead: the invoice is stored in Draft status and you land on its page.

An invoice with no order

Not everything you bill was ordered first. A day of installation, a deposit asked before the work starts, the freight on a delivery, a service sold over the phone: write the invoice directly, with the Sales Order field left empty.

• You pick the Client and the Currency yourself; with no order, nothing decides them for you. The currency opens on your organization’s own.
• Its lines name what you bill in words. A line with no product takes any unit — a day, a trip, a flat amount — and is priced by hand.
• Sending it records nothing against an order, because there is none. Only lines made from an order count towards what that order has had billed.

An invoice that was saved with an order keeps it. Its lines were made from the order’s, so taking the order off a saved draft is refused, under the field.

Managing Invoice Lines

Add the items being billed:

1. The invoice’s details are on the left of the page and its Lines are beside them on the right, from the moment you click New. A saved invoice opens the same way when you click its number in the list.
2. Click Add for each item, then double-click a cell to edit it:
   • SO Line — Link to a specific sales order line (optional).
   • Delivery Line — Link to a delivery note line (optional).
   • Product / Variant — The product being invoiced.
   • Description — A text description of the item or service.
   • Quantity — The quantity being invoiced.
   • Unit — One of the product’s units, as its Units tab lists them. A product with none listed takes any unit (Units of Measure).
   • Unit Price — The price per unit (e.g., 1,500.00 DA).
   • Tax Rate — The applicable tax percentage.
   • Discount Percent — Any line-level discount.
   • Notes — Line-specific notes.
3. The system automatically calculates line totals, tax amounts, and discount amounts. Each line’s discount, tax and total are rounded to the centime, and the invoice’s total is the sum of its lines — so a payment of the total it shows settles it.

Lines can only be added or modified while the invoice is in Draft status.

Invoice Workflow

An invoice moves through a series of statuses as it progresses from creation to payment:

1. Draft

The invoice has been created but not finalized. You can still add, edit, or remove lines and change invoice details.

2. Sent

Click Sent, the next step on the road at the top of the invoice’s page, and confirm, to record that the invoice has been transmitted to the client for payment. The road runs Draft → Sent → Paid: the steps already passed are ticked, the one the invoice is at is filled, and the next one is a button when it is a move you make yourself. Rest on a step to see when it was reached and by whom — a payment shows who recorded it. Clicking the step you are at opens the map instead: every status with an arrow for each move; the ones you can move to from here are clickable. Partially paid, Paid and Past due are never yours to pick: payments and the hourly check set them for you, and the map marks such a status Automatic. Sending locks the lines and records the billed quantities against the sales order.

3. Partially Paid

When a payment covering part of the balance is recorded, the invoice moves to Partially paid automatically. The system tracks the amount paid and the remaining amount due.

4. Paid

The invoice is marked Paid automatically once the full amount due has been collected. Payments are recorded through Record payment in the page’s More menu (⋮) on a Sent, Partially paid or Past due invoice — it asks for the amount, opening on what is still owed, books the cash in Treasury and allocates it to the invoice. The amount is counted in whole centimes: a fraction of a centime is refused.

5. Past due

A sent or partially paid invoice past its due date is marked Past due automatically — an hourly background check flips the status, so no one has to chase it. Payments recorded on a past-due invoice move it to Partially Paid or Paid as usual.

Cancelling and Voiding

• Cancel — Pick Cancelled on a Draft invoice that should never be sent. Cancelled invoices are retained for record-keeping.
• Void — Pick Void in the map of a Sent or Past due invoice issued in error before any payment settles it, and say why: the reason is kept with the move. Voiding releases the billed quantities back to the sales order so a corrected invoice can be created. For adjustments after payment, issue a credit note instead.

Invoice Totals

Each invoice displays a summary of its financial details:

Finding an Invoice

The Sales Invoices list searches by number, and its filter button narrows it by Status, Client, Sales Order, Currency, an Invoice Date or Due Date range, or a Total, Paid or Due band — what is still owed past its due date is a status, a Due Date to and a Due min (see Working with lists).

Important Notes

• Each invoice names a client. One saved with a sales order keeps it; one written without an order bills what was never ordered.
• Invoice lines can only be edited while the invoice is in Draft status.
• Recording a payment is an important financial action — ensure the amount is correct before confirming.
• Voided invoices cannot be un-voided. If the void was a mistake, create a new invoice.
• Use credit notes to formally adjust or refund invoiced amounts.