How to invoice a wholesale order and record payment

A wholesale invoice is a document of its own, raised from a confirmed order on Wholesale › Orders and listed on Wholesale › Invoices. You draft it, issue it, send it to the buyer and record payments against it. See What is wholesale? for how invoices fit into an order's life.

Before you start

Raising, issuing, sending and voiding invoices, and recording payments, need Edit wholesale invoices on Settings › Permissions. Seeing them needs View wholesale invoices, and opening any wholesale page needs View wholesale orders. All three start at lead.

The Wholesale › Invoices list appears in the menu once the Invoices module is on in Settings › Modules. See How to switch parts of Tideswell on and off.

Three things are worth setting up first:

• The order is Confirmed. Until it is, the order's Invoices panel reads Confirm the order first. See How to write and confirm a wholesale order.
• The account has payment terms and an AP contact email. The terms give each invoice its due date, and the email is where the invoice is sent. See How to add an account and set payment terms.
• Your company's Legal name and Address are filled in on Settings › Company details. An invoice has to say who sent it. See How to set the company details your invoices show.

How do you raise an invoice?

From the order's page, in one of two ways. Both create a draft invoice and open it.

• Invoice everything not yet billed, on the order's Invoices panel, bills every unit on the order that is not already on another invoice.
• Invoice this shipment, beside a shipment on the Shipments panel, bills exactly what went out in that shipment. See How to record a wholesale shipment and invoice it.

Prices come from the order lines. Anything already on an invoice is left off (a void invoice does not count), so invoicing a second shipment never bills the first one again. Once every unit is billed, the panel reads Everything on this order has been invoiced.

What can you change on a draft?

The charges and the note. Fill in Freight, Tax and Discount, and anything you want the buyer to read in Notes to buyer, which is printed on the invoice. Each saves as you leave the field.

The summary adds it up: Goods, Freight, Tax, Discount, Total, Paid and Balance due. The lines themselves come from the order or the shipment you raised it from.

How do you issue it?

Press Issue. The Issue this invoice? dialog shows the total and the number of lines, and says the invoice will be issued today with its due date taken from the account's payment terms. Press Yes, issue it.

Issuing gives the invoice the next number in your workspace's sequence, such as INV-000123, and freezes it. A message then tells you the number and the due date.

Check the freight, tax, discount and notes before you press Yes, issue it. After that, the only way to change what an invoice bills is to void it and raise another.

Where does the due date come from?

From the account's Payment terms, counted from the day you issue. An account on Net 30 gets a due date thirty days after the invoice is issued.

The date is fixed when the invoice is issued. Changing the account's terms later affects only the invoices you issue after the change, so a buyer is never chased against a date they were not given.

If the account had no terms, the invoice's Due reads No terms agreed and it never shows as overdue. Add terms to the account, then, while no payment is recorded, void the invoice and raise a new one.

How do you send it to the buyer?

Press Send to buyer on an issued invoice. The Send this invoice to the buyer? dialog explains that a PDF and a CSV go to the account's accounts-payable address, from your company details. Press Yes, send it.

Once it has gone, Sent and the date show beside the buttons. PDF and CSV download the same two files whenever you want a copy for yourself.

If the send is refused, the message names what is missing: an AP contact email on the account, or your legal name and address in Settings › Company details.

How do you record a payment?

In the Payments section at the foot of an issued invoice. Payments are recorded here, on the invoice, never on the order.

1. Check Amount. It starts at the balance due, so change it for a part payment.
2. Set Received to the date the money arrived. It starts at today.
3. Fill in Method, such as Wire, and Reference if you have one.
4. Press Record payment.

The payment joins the list above the form, and Paid and Balance due update. When nothing is left to pay, the section reads Settled in full. If you typed a payment wrong, remove it with the bin button beside it and record it again.

How does the order show where the money is?

Through its Payment chip, which follows the invoices by itself. It reads Not invoiced until an invoice is issued, then Invoiced, Part paid or Paid as payments arrive.

The order's Invoiced field shows the date of its first issued invoice. Its Due field shows the earliest due date among its invoices still waiting on money. The Invoices panel lists every invoice raised against the order, with its status, total, amount paid and due date.

How do you void an invoice?

Press Void, then Yes, void it in the Void this invoice? dialog. The units it billed become billable again, and it stops counting towards what the account owes.

Make sure before you void: a void invoice stays void. Void an invoice before any payment is recorded against it, because once money is recorded the Void button gives way to a note saying so.

What do the aging buckets mean?

Every order in the book, and every invoice, carries an Aging chip:

• Not invoiced: nothing has been issued yet. It shows whether or not anything has shipped.
• No terms agreed: issued to an account with no payment terms, so there is no due date.
• Current: issued and not yet past its due date.
• 1 to 30 days, 31 to 60 days and 60+ days: how many days past the due date.
• Paid: settled in full.

Only Not invoiced on an order whose Fulfilment reads Shipped or Partly shipped means goods have gone out unbilled. That, and the three late buckets, are the ones to work. See How to find overdue invoices and quiet accounts.