Language:


Entering an Invoice

FirstOffice provides several shortcuts to simplify your work with entering Invoices. You can for example bring a date into a date field using the 'Paste Special' function. You can also use this function to simplify the entering of Item Numbers, Customer Numbers, Payment Codes etc.

To enter a new Invoice, click [New] in the Button Bar or use the Ctrl-N (Windows and Linux) or ⌘-N (Macintosh) keyboard shortcut. Alternatively, highlight an Invoice similar to the one you want to enter and click [Duplicate] on the Button Bar.

The 'Invoice: New' window is opened, empty if you clicked [New] or containing a duplicate of the highlighted Invoice. In the case of the duplicate, the Invoice and Transaction Dates of the new Invoice will be the current date, not the date of the original one, and the Due Date will be recalculated accordingly.

!

You are not bound by the values suggested by FirstOffice. For most fields you can change the pre-set values into something that suits you better. Such changes are valid only for the Invoice in question.


Since the amount of information stored about each Invoice will not fit on a single screen, the Invoice window has been divided into five cards. At the top of each is the header. This contains the Invoice Number, the Customer Number and Name. At the bottom of the screen is the footer, which contains various totals. There are five named buttons ('tabs') in the header.

By clicking the tabs you can navigate between cards. The header is always visible, as a reminder of the Customer whose Invoice you are working with. If you have the Dual Base Currency or the Currencies, Languages and Advanced Pricing Value Packs, there will be six cards. A new 'Currency' card containing the Currency and Exchange Rate will be inserted between the 'Items' and 'Delivery' cards. This extra card is described here.

It is likely that you will create many Invoices remotely from the Sales Orders screen, using the 'Create Invoice' function on the Operations menu. You will find that most of the fields in the new Invoices will contain information carried over from the corresponding Sales Order. You can also create an Invoice by dragging an Order from the 'Orders: Browse' window to the 'Invoices: Browse' window.

When all Items have been entered, you may want to check the Invoice. Click the [Save] button to save it and then click the Printer icon in the Button Bar to print a sample Invoice document. If you want to print to screen, click the Preview icon.

In multi-user systems, FirstOffice will assign the next available Invoice Number to the Invoice when you save it for the first time. You will still be able to make changes until you approve the Invoice by clicking the OK check box. When this is done and the Invoice saved once again, it will be entered to the Sales Ledger, a Nominal Ledger Transaction for the Invoice will be created and it will no longer be modifiable.