How to invoice a wholesale order and track payment

Invoicing stamps a due date on the order, worked out from the account's payment terms. That date is what the whole aging picture is built on. The order has to be Confirmed first, per How to write and confirm a wholesale order.

How do you invoice an order?

Invoice this order, then pick the invoice date. The due date is worked out from the account's payment terms and you are told what it is before you commit.

Read that date. It is the moment the order stops being a sale and starts being money somebody owes you, and it is what every overdue calculation uses afterwards.

Where does the due date come from?

The account's payment terms in days, taken from the terms in force on the day you invoice.

Once stamped, it is fixed. Later edits to the account never move it, which is deliberate: changing an account from 30 to 60 day terms next year should not quietly reschedule an invoice you already sent.

If an order lands in the No terms agreed aging bucket, it means the account had no payment terms when you invoiced. Add them to the account, per How to add an account and set payment terms, and use the correction below for the order already invoiced.

How do you correct a wrong invoice date?

There is a correction for exactly this: pick the right date and the due date is recalculated from it.

Use it as soon as you notice. An invoice date a week out moves an order between aging buckets and makes a collections list argue with reality.

How do you record payment?

Mark the order Part paid or Paid.

Part paid is worth using honestly on a large order settled in instalments. It keeps the order in the aging picture rather than closing it, which is what you want while money is still outstanding.

Payment status moves on its own clock, independently of the order and fulfilment statuses, so an order can be confirmed, partly shipped and part paid at once.

What are the aging buckets?

Not invoiced, No terms agreed, Current, 1 to 30 days, 31 to 60 days, 60 or more days, and Paid.

Each one means something different and only two are actionable in the same way.

• Not invoiced is your own job: goods have gone and nobody has billed for them.
• No terms agreed is a data gap on the account rather than a late payer.
• 31 to 60 and 60 or more are the collections list.

That first one catches more money than the last two combined in most brands, which is why it is a bucket rather than a blank.

What is the sensible weekly routine?

Open the book, sort or filter to the aging buckets, and work them in this order.

Start with Not invoiced on anything shipped, because that is money you have not asked for. Then 60 or more days, using the account's accounts-payable email rather than the buyer's, since the person who ordered is rarely the person who pays.

How to find overdue invoices and quiet accounts covers finding both, along with the accounts that have stopped ordering entirely.