Involve with Invoices

Invoice. Invoicing. Invoiced. All these invo.. words involves with items, payments, sellers and buyers.

In simple terms, Invoice is a list sent with goods, price and quantity OR in a more formal way, it is an instrument prepared by a seller of goods or services listing all such items sold, and presented to the buyer for payment (web definition) There can be 101 definitions, however the concept wise, it is a simple document stating the goods/services sold with the financial values. In a typical invoice the following sections are included. (about.com, investopedia.com)

• Date
• Parties involved 
• customer and supplier
• Contact names
• Description of items purchased
• either products or services
• Quantity of purchase
• Price of goods and/or services
• Unique invoice number
• Tax information
• Terms of payment - the provider might specify "net 30 days," which means that the entire amount is due within 30 days

Types of invoices

There are two main types of invoice. Sales invoices and Purchase invoice. In simple form, invoice carries the meaning of owed and owing.   

Following are four scenarios where a Sale takes place and at the end of each scenario, Invoice is involved.

1. Customer request a quotation. Sales Order is generated based on the quotation. It is converted in to a Delivery Note. Finally generate invoice.
2. Sales Order is placed. Based on that, Delivery Note is generated. Finally generate the Invoice.
3. Delivery Note is generated initially. Then generate the Invoice accordingly.
4. Direct Invoice.

The first three scenarios are highly used in credit based sales. Direct Invoice occurs in cash sales and PoS where the transaction is completed along with the delivery. Keeping tracks of customers is not essential as the transaction is completed at the point. However the customers who maintain good customer records also can follow this method without any restriction.

Similarly, purchasing has several scenarios. I will discuss it further in the blogs to come. I came across the fact that many tend to confuse the invoice with purchase orders (about.com). Do you agree with that?

Importance of Invoices

In credit sales Invoice is useful as it specifies the terms of the deal, and provide information on the available methods of payment of purchased goods or services.

In cash sales Invoice is important as it becomes the only document involve with a transaction.

Invoice is a commonly used term in the field of accounting. Further invoicing is supported by ZoomBA Cloud Accounting App which covers both sales and purchasing. Now let's have a look at how ZoomBA plays with invoicing.

Entries to the GL

The records in invoice is automatically synchronizes with the General Ledger account.

Supports multicurrency

Invoicing can be done with the currency preferred by the customer.

Placing a Direct Invoice

Direct Invoice supports the direct sales (as cash and credit). You can directly generated the sales invoice as  shown below.

1. Log on to your ZoomBA cloud account and launch Accounting app
2. Click Sales from the main menu
3. Click Direct Invoice under Transactions
4. Enter invoice details. Ex: Customer, Invoice Date, etc
5. Enter item details. Ex: Item Description, Quantity, etc
6. Click Add Item
7. After adding all click Place Invoice

Customize your invoices

You can customize your invoice with the generated by ZoomBA cloud, with your company logo and details.

1. Log on to your ZoomBA cloud account and launch Accounting app
2. Click Setup from the main menu
3. Click Company Setup under Company Setup
4. Enter company data. Ex: Company Name, Company Logo, Address, Telephone numbers, etc
5. Click Update

Recurrent Invoices is a useful feature in ZoomBA Cloud. See you next time with Recurrent Invoices. Until then, stay tuned.