An invoice bills a customer for goods or services on account. In one document it books the sale, records what the customer now owes you, and issues the stock, so a single invoice posts the revenue, the tax, and the receivable and takes the goods out of inventory. A salesperson, the accountant, or the owner usually raises invoices when it is time to bill.
An invoice posts to your accounts the moment you save it, unlike a quotation or a sales order, which record intent and post nothing. It is the first document in the sales chain that has a ledger effect. You can raise one fresh, convert an accepted quotation or a confirmed sales order into it, or pull open lines from either onto a new invoice. A quotation and a sales order are both optional: the invoice is what actually books the sale and the debt.
An invoice bills on account, so it records what the customer owes but takes no money. You collect the cash later with a separate Customer Receipt, which lists the customer's open invoices so you can allocate the payment across them. If the sale is settled in cash on the spot, with nothing left owing, use a Bank Receipt instead: it does the job of an invoice and a receipt in one document.
Find invoices under Sales & Customer → Invoice.
Before you start
- The customer you are billing must exist in Customers. Picking the customer pulls in its billing and shipping addresses, its default sales rep, its pricing (any wholesale price or default discount), and its default AR Account.
- An Accounts Receivable account must exist in your Chart of Accounts. The invoice debits this account, and it must be of type Accounts Receivable. The customer's default AR account prefills it.
- Each line bills a product. Stock-tracked products (of inventory type Inventory) issue stock and post their cost; Service and Non-Inventory products bill without moving any stock. At least one product line is required to save.
- Every line needs a location (the warehouse the goods leave from). The header location, if you set one, prefills each line.
- To add tax to a line, a tax payable account must be configured under Tax settings, since the tax posts there.
- You need the Create Invoices permission, granted per user under Permissions. List Invoices lets you open the screen, and Edit, Delete, View, Print, and Email Invoices cover the rest. To convert a quotation or a sales order you also need Create Invoices. See Users, seats & permissions.
An invoice bills, it does not collect
Saving an invoice records what the customer owes (their AR); it does not take any money. Collect the cash with a separate Customer Receipt against the open invoice. For a cash sale that is settled on the spot, raise a Bank Receipt instead, which books the sale and the cash together with no balance left to collect.
Raise an invoice
Open a new invoice
Go to Sales & Customer → Invoice and select New Invoice. The invoice form opens full screen.
Check the template
The Template picker sits in the toolbar at the top of the form. ZyncLedger pre-selects your default invoice template, so you can usually leave it. The template decides which fields the form shows and how the printed invoice looks; switch it here if you keep more than one layout. See Print templates for how these are set up.
Choose the customer
Select the Customer (required). ZyncLedger fills the Billing Address and Shipping Address from the customer's record, sets the Sales Rep to the customer's default, sets the AR Account to the customer's default, and prices the lines you add from the customer's pricing (any wholesale price or default discount). You can edit either address on the invoice; both are optional. The customer's current Balance shows below the field for reference.
If the customer has open quotations or sales orders, ZyncLedger offers to pull their outstanding lines onto this invoice (see Convert a quotation or sales order below).
Confirm the AR account
Check the AR Account (required). This is the Accounts Receivable account the invoice debits, that is, the account that carries what the customer owes you. It prefills from the customer, and the list only offers accounts of type Accounts Receivable.
Set the invoice date
Enter the Invoice Date (required). This is the date the invoice posts to the ledger, so it decides which period the sale, the receivable, and the stock issue fall in.
Set the transaction number
The Invoice Number identifies the invoice. How you fill it depends on the number mode for invoices:
- Automatic (the default): the field shows Auto-generated and ZyncLedger assigns the next number when you save. Leave it alone.
- Manual: you type the number yourself. It is required and must be unique across all transactions.
See Document numbering to change the mode or set up a multi-series numbering scheme.
Add the invoice details (optional)
Fill any of these that help:
Field What it does Invoice Reference Your own reference for the invoice, such as the customer's purchase-order number. Payment Term The credit term for the invoice. It sets the due date automatically from the invoice date. Due Date The date payment is due. Prefilled from the payment term; it must be on or after the invoice date. Shipping Date The date the goods are shipped. Location The warehouse the goods leave from. It prefills the location on each line, which you can still change per line. Each line must have a location before you can save. Branch The branch to attribute the invoice to, for reporting. Sales Rep The rep to credit for the sale. Prefilled from the customer's default. Add the invoice lines
For each item you are billing, fill a row in the items table:
Column What it does Product (required) The item being billed. Selecting it fills the description, price, and any tax and discount defaults, and sets the quantity to 1. Description The line text, prefilled from the product. Edit it for this invoice if needed. Location (required) The warehouse this line's goods leave from. Defaults from the header location. Quantity (required) How many units you are billing. Must be greater than zero. Price (required) The unit selling price. Prefilled from the customer's price for the product; use the lookup beside the field to pull a recent or agreed price for this product and customer. Discount % / Discount Amount A line discount, entered either way. The amount cannot exceed the line's subtotal. Tax % / Tax Amount A tax to add to the line, entered either way. Tax Inclusive Whether the price already includes the tax (Inclusive) or the tax is added on top (Exclusive). Total The line value, calculated for you. A blank row waits at the bottom of the table, so a new line appears as you start filling the last one. To remove a line, select the trash icon at the end of its row. The Summary on the right totals the Total Items, Total Qty, Total Amount, Total Discount, Total Tax, and Final Amount as you type.
Add invoice notes (optional)
Use Invoice Notes at the foot of the form for terms, payment instructions, or any message to the customer, and Invoice Description for an internal note. If you keep standard wording, pick it from the note selector to autofill; a note marked default fills in on its own for a new invoice.
Save
Select Save to save the invoice, Save & New to save and start another, Save & Close to save and close the form, or Save & Print to save and print this one. The invoice saves with a status of Open and posts immediately.
Convert a quotation or sales order
You can build an invoice from one or more accepted quotations or confirmed sales orders instead of typing it from scratch. There are two ways in:
- From the quotations or sales orders list: tick each document you are billing (select more than one only if they are for the same customer), then select Create Invoice. The invoice opens pre-filled with the customer and the outstanding lines from the documents you picked.
- From a new invoice: open a new invoice and choose the Customer. If that customer has open quotations or sales orders, ZyncLedger prompts you to fold their outstanding lines into the invoice. Pick the lines you want and adjust the quantities.
A line pulled from a quotation or a sales order is capped at that document's remaining quantity, so you cannot bill more than was quoted or ordered on that line. You do not have to bill a document in one go: invoice part now and the rest later, and each invoice fills in the invoiced quantity on the matching line and moves the source quotation or sales order to Partial or Closed.
Invoicing a sales order line also releases the stock that line had reserved. If stock reservations are on, the sales order's reserved quantity drops by whatever you invoice, because the goods now actually leave inventory on the invoice.
What it posts
An invoice bills the customer on account, so it debits (increases) the Accounts Receivable account in the header by the invoice total, which is what the customer now owes you. Against that, it credits:
- Each line's sales account for its value before tax (the line total minus its tax).
- Any tax on a line to your tax payable account.
The debit to Accounts Receivable always equals the credited sales lines and their tax, so the entry balances. It flows through to the Trial Balance, the General Ledger, the Profit & Loss (the sales revenue), and the Balance Sheet (the receivable).
For a stock-tracked product the invoice also issues the stock: on-hand quantity drops at each line's location, and ZyncLedger posts the cost of the goods sold (debit Cost of Goods Sold, credit Inventory) at the product's current average cost. So an invoice records the revenue, the tax, and the receivable, and books the cost of the goods, in one document. Service and Non-Inventory products bill with no stock movement and no cost posting.
Saving an invoice also increases the customer's balance by the total, adding to what they owe you. That open balance is what a Customer Receipt later settles. The invoice takes no cash: nothing is debited to a bank or cash account here.
An invoice never posts a receipt
No matter how the customer intends to pay, an invoice always debits Accounts Receivable and waits for a Customer Receipt to bring the money in. There is no "paid now" option on the invoice. If the money arrives at the same time and leaves nothing owing, raise a Bank Receipt instead, which debits your bank or cash account there and then.
The invoice is saved with a status of Open, and its status then tracks how much of it has been settled:
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Open | The invoice is posted and nothing has been settled against it yet. This is the status of every new invoice. |
| Partial | A Customer Receipt or an Invoice Credit has settled part of the invoice, but not all of it. |
| Closed | The invoice is fully settled. |
| Deleted | The invoice has been deleted (see below). It is kept for the record but its amounts are zeroed. |
The status is about settlement, not delivery
An invoice's status tracks how much of the amount owing has been settled by a Customer Receipt (cash) or an Invoice Credit (a return), not how much has been delivered. Recording a Delivery Order against the invoice does not change its status.
Deliver and credit an invoice
An invoice feeds two more documents, both raised from the invoices list:
- Create Delivery Order records the quantities you actually deliver against the invoice. A Delivery Order is non-posting: it tracks fulfilment and moves no further stock (the stock already left on the invoice).
- Create Invoice Credit raises a credit against the invoice for a return or an adjustment. An Invoice Credit reverses the sale: it takes the goods back into stock, reverses the revenue and tax, and reduces the customer's balance.
Tips & gotchas
Quotation, sales order, or straight to an invoice?
Raise a Quotation to put a price in front of a customer before they commit. Use a Sales Order to confirm an accepted order and (optionally) reserve the stock before you invoice. Go straight to an invoice when the sale is already agreed and you are billing it now. Each earlier stage is optional; the invoice is where the sale actually posts.
Duplicate an existing invoice
To reuse an invoice, open its row menu on the list and select Copy to Invoice. ZyncLedger opens a new invoice pre-filled from the old one, with a fresh number. This needs the Copy to Invoice permission.
The credit limit is shown, not enforced
The customer's Balance shows on the form for reference so you can see how much they already owe before you bill more. ZyncLedger does not block an invoice that would take a customer past their credit limit; the limit is guidance, not a hard stop.
A settled or credited invoice is locked
Once a Customer Receipt or an Invoice Credit has been applied to an invoice, ZyncLedger will not let you delete it, reduce a line below its credited quantity, or reduce the total below what has been settled. Reverse the receipt or the credit first.
Deleting an invoice removes its postings
There is no reversing entry. Deleting an invoice sets its status to Deleted, removes its lines from the ledger, reverses the stock it issued and its cost, lowers the customer's balance, and rolls back the invoiced quantity on any linked quotation or sales order (restoring its reservation). ZyncLedger blocks the deletion if the invoice has any payment or credit applied, if any of its lines have been reconciled on a bank reconciliation, or if its date falls in a period closed by the Ledger close date, so settled and locked history stays intact.
Related
- Customers are the parties you bill, and carry the addresses, default sales rep, pricing, and default AR account the invoice uses.
- Products & Items are the lines you bill; their inventory type decides whether a line issues stock and posts a cost or bills with no stock movement.
- Warehouses & Locations are where the goods leave from.
- Chart of Accounts holds the Accounts Receivable, sales, cost of goods sold, inventory, and tax accounts an invoice posts to.
- Quotation and Sales Order are the optional documents an invoice can be built from.
- Invoice Credit credits or returns against an invoice.
- Delivery Order records delivered quantities against an invoice.
- Customer Receipt collects the cash and settles the invoice's open balance.
- Bank Receipt is the cash-sale alternative, booking the sale and the cash in one document.
- Document numbering controls the invoice's transaction number.
