Sales invoices

Sales invoices are a feature located within the Finance module of the Flowlens application.

Creating a sales invoice from a sales order

Once a user has given a sales order a status of 'Confirmed', an option to 'Generate Invoice' will display in that sales order's 'Actions' drop-down.

Users can generate one or many sales invoices against a sales order, although a sales invoice may only ever be linked to one sales order.

Generating an invoice from a Sales Order, does the following:

• Relates the invoice to sales order
• Copies the line items to the sales invoice from the sales order

There is an ‘Invoice’ tab in sales and purchase orders, wherein users can view all related sales invoices.

Select 'New Sales Invoice' on the index page.

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Users should mark a sales invoice as 'Authorised' if it has been authorised. Once authorised, the sales invoice should be marked as 'Paid' if it has been paid.

Users have the option to download the sales invoice as a PDF file, and can also send the sales invoice (and an attached sales invoice PDF) to any email address.

Nominal and VAT rules when generating a SOI from a SO:

• Part Name and Description will come from the sales order Line item Name and Description. These will be joined and populated in the ‘Description’ field in SOI line item.
• The Sales VAT will come from the company’s sales VAT. If the company has no sales VAT, the VAT field will not be auto-populated.
• The Nominal account will come from ‘Sales Nominal field’ of the part used in the Sales Order Line item. If the part did not have this value, then the field will not be auto-populated.

Additional terms: 

• Invoiced to date - Once an invoice is raised against a sales order, the total value of all the sales invoices raised against the order will be seen in this value.
• Total Outstanding value- Once a sales order is marked as 'Accepted', the ‘Total Outstanding’ is set to the sales order total (inc VAT). If some invoices are raised against the sales order, then total values are subtracted from the sales order total to show you the Total outstanding value. Total Outstanding Value = (sales order total) - (Invoiced to date).
  • If this value displays visually as Red in colour, there are still outstanding monies left to be invoiced against the order.
  • If the value is Green in colour, the sales order has been fully invoiced
  • If this value is negative, the sales order has been over invoiced.
• Paid to date - This is the sum total of the sales invoices which have the payment status as ‘Paid’.
  • If Paid to date is less than the sales order total, then the value is Red in colour as outstanding monies remain to be paid.
  • If Paid to date is equal to the sales order total, then the value is Green in colour, and the sales order has been paid in Full.
  • If Paid to date is more than the sales order total, then the value is Green in Colour but has been overpaid. Note: This will only happen if the SO was over-invoiced.

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! The above values will always remain at 0 until a sales order is ‘Accepted’.

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Sales invoices for users with integrated accountancy packages

Users with integrated accounting packages will have an option to send a sales invoice directly to their accounting package. The 'send to accountancy package' link displays in a sales invoice's 'Actions' drop-down.

Users can also refresh the sales invoice to their accountancy package until such times as the sales invoice is cancelled.

! If the customer being invoiced already exists in the accounting package and Flowlens has the customer’s unique accounting package ID, then the customer ID will be seen on the invoice. Also, the invoice will be sent to the accounts and the unique Invoice ID will be returned to the invoice page on Flowlens.

Authorising and sending the sales invoice are not required for accountancy package integration, but should still be used through the working business process to ensure that all sales invoices are kept accurate. Sales invoices should be set to status of 'Authorised' once this has been confirmed by the user.

A ‘Last refreshed from Accounting Package’ timestamp displays on the sales invoice, so users can keep tabs on when the invoice was last updated in Flowlens.

! If the customer name does not exist in the accounting package, i.e. this is the first time a user deals with the customer via Flowlens, then the user will be prompted to either create a customer in the accounting package, or relate it to an existing customer there.

Once an invoice has been linked to the accounting package, any updates done in Flowlens will be auto-refreshed in the accounts package. However, if any transactions and/or edits are made in the accounts package for the Invoice, the user must manually refresh the invoice in Flowlens to reflect those changes from the accounting package.

Sales invoices for users without integrated accounting packages 

Users without integrated accountancy packages can set the status of sales invoices to the following:

• Authorise sales invoice - To be set once the sales invoice is confirmed.
• Mark as 'Sent' - The sales invoice has been emailed to someone, i.e the customer
• Mark as 'Paid' - The sales invoice value has been paid out to the customer.

These can be set through the relevant sales invoice's 'Actions' drop-down.

! Users will only be able to mark a sales invoice as 'Paid' after it has been authorised.