Invoices

What an invoice does

An invoice records a sale and a debt in the same moment: the income is earned now and the money arrives later. Approving it posts the sale; recording the customer's payment later settles the debt without touching the income again.

Proforma invoices

A proforma invoice is the invoice before it exists: what you ask a customer to pay in advance, or to approve, open a letter of credit or clear goods through customs on. It shows the same lines, VAT and total the invoice will, but it is not a tax invoice. Nothing about it is posted, and it is numbered in its own series, PI-, so the invoice numbers stay unbroken.

Proforma invoices already made in the same menu lists them in Document History. Proforma invoices are part of the free Document Generation plugin: without it, New proforma invoice says where to add it. See Documents for everything else a proforma shares with a quotation — revising, duplicating, expiry and the AI Builder.

Raise an invoice

What approving posts

The customer now owes you the total, the sale is in the profit and loss, and the VAT is owed to the FTA on your next return.

Statuses

An invoice past its due date shows how many days it is overdue. That figure comes from the server, not your device's clock, so it matches the Receivables Aging Report.

Working with an invoice

The list is newest first. Search finds an invoice by its number, reference or customer, or by its total (1,050); Sort orders by date, amount or number. Credit notes are listed the same way.

Click an invoice in the list to open it. Its lines are listed with each Qty as it is said, 1 or 2.5, without the zeros it is kept with; the PDF is unchanged. Depending on its status you will see:

• Edit draft — change a draft before approving.
• Copy — on a row of the list, or inside an invoice — opens New invoice filled in from it: the same customer, lines, VAT, terms, notes and tags. The Issue date is today and the Due date is as many days after it as the original's. It takes its own number when it is approved, and a number typed on the original is not carried. It is a new draft and the original is not touched, whatever its status. Needs Create sales. Credit notes copy the same way.
• Delete draft — throw an unapproved draft away. It has no number and nothing has posted, so there is no gap to explain and no reason to give; you are asked to confirm, and it cannot be brought back. Needs only Create sales, the same permission that raised it. It is refused while something still points at the draft — a recurring schedule that uses it as a template, a transport job billed against it, a credit applied to it — and the refusal names what to unpick first.
• Approve — post a draft. Someone whose role can create but not approve saves drafts; an approver then opens and approves them.
• Preview — view the PDF exactly as the customer will receive it.
• Download — save the PDF.
• Link — make a shareable link, useful when an email gateway strips attachments. It expires in 30 days and can be revoked from the same page.
• Send — email it to the customer, with an optional Cc and Message. It arrives from “your company’s name via Accmerio”, with the PDF attached and, if you made one, a View it online button. When your company has an email address recorded, the customer’s reply goes straight to it; the Cc address receives a copy.
• Void — cancel an approved invoice. You must say Why this is being voided, then Confirm void.
• Settled by — the receipts and credit notes applied to it, and the Outstanding amount. A balance written off is listed as Written off, and the invoice then shows Written off and Outstanding after write-off.
• Write off balance — on an approved invoice that still owes, knock off a small balance the customer will not pay: they paid 999.98 of 1,000.00, or a few fils are left after a bank charge. Enter the Amount to write off (all of what is left, to start with), the Date, the account it is Written off to — Rounding Differences to start with, or Discounts Given or a bad-debt expense — and a Reason, check Balance after write-off, then press Write off. It posts: debit the account chosen, credit Accounts Receivable with the customer. The invoice becomes Paid when nothing is left, and the aged list, the statement of account (Written off) and the customer's balance all drop with it. VAT on the invoice is unchanged: to reduce the VAT, raise a credit note instead. Needs Approve sales.
• Reverse — beside a write-off under Written off, with Why it is being reversed: its journal is reversed and the balance is owed again. The write-off stays listed, marked Reversed, with both reasons. Needs Approve sales and Edit, delete or reverse what has already posted. A write-off is reversed here, never from Journals or by removing it from Settled by.
• Tracking — the project and branch it was tagged with (see Tracking); a line tagged differently says so under its description. Tag a draft beside its Reference, and override a line at its foot.
• When it is approved — on a draft, what approving it will do with money the customer already paid (for example a transport deposit: Deposit 100.00 AED (RCT-00012, received 25 Sep 2026) will be applied when this invoice is approved.). It is printed on the draft's PDF too.
• Money on account — on an approved invoice that still owes, a note says how much of the customer's money is not applied to any invoice yet, and from which receipts, with Apply it to this invoice. Applying posts nothing: it matches the receipt to the invoice.
• Evidence — attach the paperwork behind it: a PDF, PNG, JPG or WebP file of up to 10 MB, with an optional note saying What it is (optional), then Attach. A posted invoice takes evidence like a draft does, because attaching changes nothing on it. Anyone who can read the invoice can download its files; attaching and removing need Create sales. Removing deletes the file, and the Audit Trail keeps its name, size and fingerprint. Its history on the Audit Trail opens every recorded change to this invoice.

Once money is applied to it, the invoice prints Amount paid and Balance due under its total, even where the template hides them. An invoice with nothing applied prints as before.

When the customer pays

This posts: debit the bank, credit Accounts Receivable. The invoice's outstanding amount falls, and it becomes Paid when nothing is left.

From an invoice, Receive payment first shows the customer's money on account and ticks Apply it to INV-… first. The amount is filled in with only the balance. When the money on account covers the whole invoice, the button reads Apply what is on account and nothing new is recorded.

Getting it wrong

• A draft is wrong — Edit draft and fix it, or Delete draft if it should not exist at all.
• An approved invoice is wrong — Void it with a reason and raise a new one. It cannot be deleted: voiding reverses the entry and keeps the number, so the series has no gap, and the change is listed under Reports › Modification Register.
• The customer should get part or all of it back — raise a credit note and apply it to the invoice. See Credit Notes.
• A small balance will never be paid — Write off balance on the invoice. Written off by mistake? Reverse it there, with a reason.

Invoice numbers

Numbers come from a gap-free series. Change the prefix, digits, suffix or the next number in Workspace › Document Templates › Document numbers. The counter can be moved forward, never back — moving it back would issue a number already in a customer's hands.

Date of supply

Date of supply, beside the invoice's other dates, is the day the goods or services were actually supplied. Fill it in only when that is a different day from the invoice date; leave it empty otherwise. It is printed on the tax invoice, and the review summary shows it before you approve. A credit note has the same field.

• It is never printed when it is the same day as the invoice date, because there is then no difference to show.
• A date of supply more than a year from the invoice date is refused as a typing mistake.
• The invoice still posts on its own date, so its VAT falls in the period of the invoice date. VAT is due by the date of supply, and a tax invoice should follow within 14 days of it; if the VAT return covering the date of supply is already filed, ask your accountant whether a voluntary disclosure is needed.