Post a customer invoice
Where: invoice detail → Post invoice.
Who: sales.invoice.post, invoice viewing and the document's business-unit access.
What posting means
Posting is different from creating the draft, sending a bill to the customer, receiving payment and dispatching stock. Those are separate activities.
Before posting
Check the customer, source order, dates, currency, line quantities, discounts, tax and total. Review the invoice checklist and journal where applicable.
The invoice must be Draft, have at least one line and a total greater than zero. A zero-value draft is not postable even if its order creation succeeded.
Post and verify
- Select Post invoice.
- Read the confirmation: Post this invoice? Its amounts cannot be edited.
- Confirm the action.
- Wait for the detail to reload and check status Posted.
- Confirm Paid / credited is 0 and Amount due equals the posted total for a newly posted invoice.
- Use Order invoice and journal to verify the accounting context as needed.
Example: the 327.60 Café Aroma draft becomes Posted, with due 327.60. Posting does not create a 327.60 payment or reduce the amount due to zero.
The older order-based invoice page also has Post Invoice. It calls the order-centric posting workflow directly and shows a success message; do not assume it has the same confirmation interaction as the newer detail. Both refer to the same invoice, so use one path and verify its resulting status.
After posting
- The draft-cancellation action is no longer available.
- There is no posted invoice amount/date editor, unpost button or ordinary reversal command in this workspace.
- Payments can be allocated through the relevant payment workflow.
- The invoice is eligible for posted-invoice reporting, subject to dates and scope.
- Sales dispatch eligibility must still be checked in Sales; this posting action does not dispatch anything.
If the posted invoice is wrong, involve Accounts and the application owner. The current browser's credit-note write restriction means this guide cannot provide a Create credit note workaround for an error.
Errors and uncertain outcomes
| Message / condition | Action |
|---|---|
| Only DRAFT sales invoices can be posted | Reload; another user may already have posted or cancelled it |
| Sales invoice must have at least one line before posting | Review the source/data problem; do not invent an extra line here |
| Sales invoice total amount must be greater than zero | Resolve commercial values through the supported source/draft replacement workflow |
| Accounting configuration or posting error | Give Accounts/support the invoice/order IDs, unit and exact message |
| Request timed out or controls require reload | Select Reload and inspect status before any retry |
A retry is a fresh decision based on current state, not proof the first attempt failed. Avoid switching to the order-based Post Invoice button merely to bypass an uncertain result in the newer page.