Part 5 - Invoicing

The system maintains two financial ledgers; one for ‘sales’ and one for ‘purchases’ and together they ensure that all financial transactions are captured in detail and that all costs and recharging/invoicing are done with complete accuracy.

The ‘sales’ ledger

The sales ledger holds all of the sales invoices created when a customer places an order for a stock item or a quotation.

The life-cycle of a sales invoice is as follows:

1. Accrue the sales value of the project or stock order.
2. Invoice is ‘approved’. At this point it picks up its invoice number.
3. Invoice is ‘issued’ with an issue date. At this point, any further charges to the customer for this project or stock order will raise a new invoice.
4. Invoice PDF is printed and sent to the customer or emailed.
5. Invoice is exported to the accounting system (e.g. SAP, Ariba, Oracle, JDEdwards, etc.). At this point the invoice will automatically be archived by the system.

The ‘purchase’ ledger

The purchase ledger holds a list of supplier invoices that can be accepted by the system.

The life-cycle of a purchase invoice is as follows:

1. Accrue the approved costs for the supplier.
2. The supplier’s activity is marked as ‘complete’ for the job. The supplier may now submit their invoice.
3. Invoice is received and matched on the system, capturing the invoice date and number.
4. Invoice is exported to the accounting system. This invoice will then be automatically archived by the system.

Consolidated Sales Invoicing

You may also find that your customer requires a single invoice covering all of the jobs and/or stock orders for a particular period (i.e. a month or a quarter).

The system allows you to do this by creating a Consolidated Invoice that includes all of your chosen invoices for the selected period.
You can then process this Consolidated Invoice in exactly the same way as an individual invoice (i.e. you can ‘approve’ and then ‘issue’ this invoice).

In the system configuration this can be disabled if required.

Finding the sales invoice

Sales invoices are created by the system for both jobs and stock orders but only once the order has been ‘delivered’. For a Project this may mean that all of the Goods Receipts have been completed. For a stock order it requires at least one of the destinations to be marked as ‘dispatched’.

You can access the sales invoice in a number of ways:

From the Project

To view the sales invoice for a specific project:

1. Go to Jobbags >† View All.
2. Open the Project you wish to view the invoicing for.
3. Click the View details to be invoiced link at the top of the project.

1. Go to Inventory >† Orders.
2. Open the stock order you wish to view the invoicing for.
3. Click the Invoice (current) link in the Order Details section.

From the Sales Invoices listing

The Customer Invoices listing contains a complete view of all of the current sales invoices on the system (a ‘current’ invoice means one that has not been issued to the customer yet).

1. Go to Customers †> Sales Invoices.
2. Locate the invoice you wish to view.
3. Click the job ref of the invoice.

The listing includes the following information:

FILTERING THE SALES INVOICES LISTING

If you cannot see the invoice you are looking for, it may be that the invoice has already been processed and not visible on the initial listing view.

The Filter allows you to view invoices that have already been processed:

1. Go to Customers †> Sales Invoices.
2. Click the Filter button at the top-right of the listing.
3. Select the customers you wish to include in your filtering (or leave these as they are to automatically include invoices from all customers).
4. Select the Status of invoices you wish to include.
5. Optionally set the Sort Order for your listing.
6. Click OK

SEARCHING FOR A SALES INVOICE

1. Go to Customers †> Sales Invoices.
2. Click the black triangle button at the top-left of the listing.
3. Put your search details in the Search field at the top of the filtering panel.
4. Select the type of search from the drop-down menu to the right of the Search field.
   You also have additional search criteria to choose from to help you refine your search.
5. Click Go!.

Overview of a Sales Invoice

The Sales Invoice page incorporates all the key components of a valid sales invoice:

• Customer details (tax number, address)
• Invoice Number
• Invoice Date
• Line Items (each job part / stock order is broken down by delivery address with value of goods and tax to each address)
• Tax summary
• Net sale value
• Gross sale value
• Additional Notes
• Invoicing terms

Invoicing Policy Restrictions

Depending on your system's configuration, invoicing policy restrictions may be in force, preventing the approval or issue of sales invoices until all deliveries have been received for the job and/or all supplier invoices are received.

Each line item on the sales invoice will show warning messages if any policy violations prevent their invoicing.

Approving a sales invoice

You ‘approve’ an invoice in order to assign the next invoice number to it.

AvaTax Systems

For those systems incorporating AvaTax automated sales-tax calculation:

1. Go to Customers > †Sales Invoices.
2. Open the invoice you wish to approve.
3. Check the invoice address and change it if necessary.
4. In the Summary section, click recalculate to get the correct tax rate. Appropriate sales tax will be automatically calculated given a number of key factors such as customer tax status, delivery destination and usage type.
5. Click the Approve Invoice button at the top of the page. A warning message will open.
6. Click OK.

Non-AvaTax Systems

For all other systems with non-automated sales tax:

1. Go to Customers > †Sales Invoices.

2. Open the invoice you wish to approve.

   Note: If you see a pull-down menu in the P&L field then this means that no P&L allocation has been made to the job yet, usually because no supplier POs have been sent. There may be a very good reason for this but are you sure you should be invoicing the client so early?

3. Set the tax type of each line item (if they are not already set).

4. Click the Approve Invoice button at the bottom of the page. A warning message will open.

   Note: If the Approve button is disabled then this is probably because at least 1 line item in your invoice does not have a tax type set.

5. Click OK.

1. On the Invoice Details page, set the invoice date.
   Address details will be automatically validated upon entry to ensure that a final tax calculation can always be calculated by AvaTax.  
2. Check the invoice FAO and address and change them if necessary.
3. In the Summary section, click recalculate to get the correct tax rate. Appropriate sales tax will be automatically calculated given a number of key factors such as customer tax status, delivery destination and usage type.

4. Enter any Notes for the invoice.

5. Enter any specific Terms for the invoice. 
6. Click Preview if you wish to preview the invoice PDF before issuing it.
7. Click the Issue button to issue the invoice. A warning message will open.

1. On the Invoice Details page, set the invoice date.
2. Set the Tax Number (if this is presented as a pull-down menu).
3. Check the invoice FAO and address and change them if necessary.

4. Enter any Notes for the invoice.

5. Enter any specific Terms for the invoice. 
6. Click Preview if you wish to preview the invoice PDF before issuing it.
7. Click the Issue button to issue the invoice. A warning message will open.
8. Click OK.

Consolidated Sales Invoicing

To create a Consolidated Sales Invoice:

1. Go to Customers > Sales Invoices
2. Select a Customer from the drop-down menu.
3. Ensure the Status option is set to New.
   
4. Click Go! to filter the listing.
5. Select each of the sales invoices you wish to consolidate.
6. Click the Consolidate selected button at the bottom of the listing.
7. Follow the steps for Approving and Issuing the sales invoice in the usual way.

Downloading Invoice Datafile

The Invoice CSV (datafile) should not be confused with the Invoicing Data Export:

• Invoice CSV (datafile) - contains information relating to a single invoice or consolidated invoice. It can be produced at any time after the sales invoice has been Issued. Typically this datafile is submitted to the customer as 'backing data' along with the invoice itself.
  
  
• Invoicing Data Export - contains information relating to all Issued invoices across all customers. It can only be produced once and is designed to be the primary means of integrating the Sales Ledger with your Financial/ERP System.

To download the Invoice CSV:

1. Go to the Issued sales invoice.
2. Click the Download CSV button at the bottom of the page.

Finding a purchase invoice

To access a supplier’s purchase invoice on the system their activity must first have been marked as ‘Completed’ on the project.

From the Project Sheet

To view the sales invoice for a specific project:

1. Go to Projects >† View All.
2. Open the Project you wish to view the supplier invoicing for.
3. Go to the supplier in the pricing section.
4. Click the Reconcile invoice link to the right of the supplier name.

From the Purchase Invoices listing

The Purchase Invoices listing contains a complete view of all of the supplier invoices that can be received on the system.

1. Go to Suppliers >† Purchase Invoices.
2. In the Search/Filter section, set the Type option to Invoices.
3. Click the ref of the purchase invoice you wish to view.

The listing includes the following information:

FILTERING / SEARCHING THE PURCHASE INVOICES LISTING

If you cannot see the supplier invoice you are looking for, it may be that it has already been received and processed and not visible on the initial listing view.

The Filter allows you to view invoices that have already been processed:

1. Go to Suppliers >† Purchase Invoices.
2. In the Search terms and options at the top of the listing, enter your criteria/options.
3. Click Go!.

1. Open the purchase invoice you wish to receive.
2. Enter the supplier’s invoice date  in the date field at the top right of the page.
3. Enter the supplier’s invoice number in the field below the date.
4. If the Net value on the supplier’s invoice does not exactly match the Net value on screen then click the Net value and enter the value on the invoice.

5. If the tax value on the invoice does not match the tax value on screen then click the tax value and enter the value on the invoice.

   Note: Only change the Net or tax values if you intend to accept the supplier’s invoice for the new value. If you intend to dispute the invoice then do not process this invoice in the system. You should instead contact the supplier and raise the dispute with them directly.

6. Enter any Notes.
7. Enter any specific Terms.
8. Click the Invoice Received button at the bottom of the page.

 If you accepted an invoice for a value other than the expected amount then you will be presented with a popup panel asking you why you are accepting the invoice for the wrong value:

Invoice values do not match: Part invoice or credit note expected

If the invoice is a Part Invoice or you are expecting a credit note from the supplier:

1. Click Continue.

1. Select the ‘This is the final invoice.’ Option.
2. Select the reason from the drop-down menu.
3. Click Continue.

Exporting purchase invoices to the accounting system

Periodically you will need to export the received purchase invoices to your organization’s accounting system:

1. Go to Suppliers >† Purchase Invoices.
2. Click the Export button at the top of the page.