How Invoicing connects to Sales, Payments and Accounting
Ownership in everyday language
| Module | Owns / supplies | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Party | Shared customer identity | Café Aroma's organisation name |
| Customer/Partner | Customer trading relationship and lookup | Partner matched during payment allocation |
| Catalog | Product and variant labels | Standard Mug; Blue/Large T-shirt |
| Sales | Agreement, pricing and dispatch | Confirmed order 1188 |
| Invoicing | Customer invoice and linked sales credits | Draft/Posted bill and current balance |
| Payment | Customer receipts and allocations | 200 applied to the bill |
| Accounting | Journals and receivables views | Draft journal, posted debt, customer statement |
| Reports | Aggregation and export | November sales by customer |
| Purchasing | Supplier bills and vendor payments | Northstar bill; not this invoice register |
Identity corrections belong in the appropriate customer/Party records. Commercial invoice amounts are copied from Sales. Do not create a second customer just because a name enrichment is unavailable on a historical bill.
Different screens for the same invoice
- Sales invoices is the cross-order register and newer detail with balance cards and existing credit-note links.
- Order invoice and journal is the sales-order-centric composed view, including journal/account information.
- Invoice Payment under the order provides its receipt recording/history path.
- Payments is a separate customer receipt workspace with allocation records.
Opening all four does not create four invoices. Compare invoice number/ID and source order so that payment or posting is performed only once.
What changes stock?
Sales confirmation/reservation and dispatch belong to Sales/Inventory. Invoicing creation/posting does not add or remove stock. An existing credit classified Sales return is a financial document; its name does not establish that a physical return was received into a location.
For stock operations, follow the Sales and Inventory guides. For supplier invoices and vendor payments, use Purchasing.
Reconcile the right question with the right record
| Question | Best starting point |
|---|---|
| What did the customer agree to buy? | Source Sales order and pricing breakdown |
| What have we billed? | Invoice register/detail |
| Has the bill been finalised? | Invoice Posted/settled status and journal |
| What remains due on this bill? | Current invoice Amount due |
| How much cash arrived? | Actual receipts/payment evidence, not Paid / credited alone |
| Which receipt reduced this bill? | Payment allocation rows |
| Why is due less than payments suggest? | Existing effective credit notes and other allocations |
| What are the month's sales? | Sales by customer report |
| Has the customer received their goods? | Sales dispatch records |
When asking support about a mismatch, include invoice number/ID, source order ID, customer Partner, unit, currency and the relevant payment/credit references. That lets the team trace the same business event across its documents.