Invoice Sales

You create a sales invoice or sales order to record your agreement with a customer to sell certain products on certain delivery and payment terms.

There are a couple of scenarios where you must use a sales order instead of a sales invoice:

  • If you need to ship only part of an order quantity, for example, because the full quantity is not on hand.
  • If you ship products after you post the corresponding sales invoices.
  • If you sell items that your vendor delivers directly to your customer, known as drop shipment. For more information, see Make Drop Shipments.

In all other aspects, sales orders and sales invoices work in the same way. For more information, see Sell Products.

You can negotiate with the customer by first creating a sales quote, which you can convert to a sales invoice when you agree on the sale. For more information, see Make Sales Quotes.

If the customer decides to buy, you post the sales invoice to create the related quantity and value entries. When you post the sales invoice, you can also email the document as a PDF attachment. You can have the email body prefilled with a summary of the invoice and payment information, such as a link to PayPal. For more information, see Send Documents by Email. When the customer then pays the invoice, you can register that payment in different ways, depending on the size and preferred workflows of your organization. For more information, see the Registering Payments section.

You can easily correct or cancel a posted sales invoice before it is paid. For example, this is useful if you want to correct a typing mistake or if the customer requests a change early in the order process. For more information, see Correct or Cancel Unpaid Sales Invoices. If the posted sales invoice is paid, then you must create a sales credit memo to reverse the sale. For more information, see Process Sales Returns or Cancellations.

The item card can be of type Inventory, Service, and Non-Inventory to specify if the item is a physical inventory unit, a labor time unit, or a physical unit that is not kept on inventory. For more information, see Register New Items. The sales invoice process is the same for all three item types.

You can fill customer fields on the sales invoice in two ways depending on whether the customer is already registered. See steps 2 and 3 in the following procedure.

To create a sales invoice

  1. Choose the Lightbulb that opens the Tell Me feature icon, enter Sales Invoices, and then choose the related link.

  2. In the Customer field, enter the name of an existing customer.

    Other fields on the Sales Invoice page contain standard information about the selected customer. If the customer is not registered, follow these steps:

  3. In the Customer field, enter the name of the new customer.

  4. In the dialog box about registering the new customer, choose the Yes button.

  5. On the Select a template for a new customer page, choose a template to base the new customer card on, and then choose the OK button.

  6. A new customer card displays the information on the selected customer template. Fill in the remaining fields. For more information, see Register New Customers.

  7. When you have completed the customer card, choose the OK button to return to the Sales Invoice page.

    Several fields on the sales invoice are now filled with information that you specified on the new customer card.

  8. Fill in the remaining fields on the Sales Invoice page as necessary. Hover over a field to read a short description.

    Note

    If you allow the customer to pay immediately, for example, by cash or by PayPal, then fill in the Payment Method Code field. The payment is then recorded as soon as you post the sales invoice. If you select CASH, then the payment is recorded in a specified balancing account.

    You are now ready to fill in the sales invoice lines for products that you are selling to the customer or for any transaction with the customer that you want to record in a G/L account.

    If you have set up recurring sales lines for the customer, such as a monthly replenishment order, then you can insert these lines on the order by choosing the Get Recurring Sales Lines action.

  9. On the Lines FastTab, in the Type field, select what type of product, charge, or transaction that you will post for the customer with the sales line.

  10. In the No. field, select a record to post according to the value in the Type field.

    You leave the No. field empty in the following cases:

    • If the line is for a comment. Write the comment in the Description field.
    • If the line is for a catalog item. Choose the Select Catalog Items action. For more information, see Work With Catalog Items.

  11. In the Quantity field, enter how many units of the product, charge, or transaction that the line will record for the customer.

    Note

    If the item is of type Service, or the Type field contains Resource, then the quantity is a time unit, such as hours, as indicated in the Unit of Measure Code field on the line. For more information, see Set Up Item Units of Measure

    The value in the Line Amount field is calculated as Unit Price x Quantity.

    The price and line amounts are with or without sales tax, depending on what you selected in the Prices Including Tax field on the customer card.

  12. If you want to give a discount, enter a percentage in the Line Discount % field. The value in the Line Amount field updates accordingly.

    If special item prices are set up on the Sales Prices and Sales Line Discounts FastTab on the customer or item card, the price and amount on the sales line automatically update if the price criteria is met. For more information, see Record Sales Price, Discount, and Payment Agreements.

  13. Repeat steps 9 through 12 for every product or charge that you want to invoice the customer for.

    The totals fields under the lines are automatically updated as you create or modify lines to display the amounts that will be posted to the ledgers.

    Note

    In very rare cases, the posted amounts may deviate from what is displayed in the totals fields. This is typically due to rounding calculations in relation to VAT or sales tax.

    To check the amounts that will actually be posted, you can use the Statistics page, which takes into account the rounding calculations. Also, if you choose the Release action, the totals fields will be updated to include rounding calculations.

  14. In the Invoice Discount Amount field, enter an amount that should be deducted from the value shown in the Total Incl. Tax field.

    If you have set up invoice discounts for the customer, then the specified percentage value is automatically inserted in the Invoice Discount % field if the criteria are met, and the related amount is inserted in the Inv. Discount Amount Excl. Tax field. For more information, see Record Sales Price, Discount, and Payment Agreements.

  15. When the sales invoice lines are completed, choose the Post and Send action.

The Post and Send Confirmation dialog box displays the customer's preferred method of receiving documents. You can change the sending method by choosing the lookup button for the Send Document to field. For more information, see Set Up Document Sending Profiles.

The related item and customer ledger entries are now created in your system, and the sales invoice is output as a PDF document. The sales invoice is removed from the list of sales invoices and replaced with a new document in the list of posted sales invoices.

Registering Payments

Depending on your business needs, you can get paid and register that payment in different ways: manually, automatically, and through payment services.

You can process the payments straight from the customer card. Use the Register Customer Payments action to get an overview of unpaid invoices for that customer. Then, mark the invoice as paid partially or in full. This payment reconciliation processes your customer payments by matching amounts received on your bank account with the related unpaid sales invoices, and then posts the payments. For more information, see To reconcile payments individually.

In business environments where the customer pays some time after delivery, according to the payment term, a posted sales invoice remains open (unpaid) until the Accounts Receivable department verifies that payment is received and applies the payment to the posted sales invoice. This can be done manually or automatically. For more information, see Reconcile Customer Payments with the Cash Receipt Journal or from Customer Ledger Entries and Reconcile Payments Using Automatic Application.

In business environments where the customer pays immediately, for example by PayPal or cash, payment is recorded immediately when you post the sales invoice, that is, the posted sales invoice is closed as fully applied. You select the relevant method in the Payment Method Code field on the sales order. See under step 8. For electronic payments, such as PayPal, you must also fill in the Payment Service field. For more information, see Enable Customer Payments Through Payment Services.

You can even create directly-paid invoices for non-registered customers by first setting up a "cash customer" card, which you point to on the sales invoice. For more information, see Set Up Cash Customers.

See Also

Sales
Setting Up Sales
Print the Picking List
Inventory
Send Documents by Email
Bulk Invoicing from Microsoft Bookings in Business Central
Working with Business Central