Sales

Sales covers the customer side of the business: who you sell to, what you have promised them, what you have billed them, and what they still owe.

The customer is the main record. A customer holds contact details, PAN, credit limit, payment terms and a customer type. Customer types group customers and carry a discount percentage, so staff do not have to remember wholesale and retail prices line by line. Everything else, from sales orders to receivables, links back to the customer record.

Two documents do the selling. A sales order records what the customer has asked for before you bill it, which matters when goods are delivered later or the order needs approval first. A sales invoice is the billing document. It carries the line items, discounts, VAT, due date and payment terms, and it is what creates the receivable. An approved sales order converts straight into an invoice, so nothing is retyped.

After an invoice is approved you can record a payment against it. You can take part payments. The invoice moves to partially paid and stays open until the balance is cleared. Then it completes. Payments are then settled from the customer payment list, which is the confirmation that the money has actually reached you.

A credit note is the correction. It is always raised against an existing invoice, pulls that invoice’s lines in, and reduces the amount the customer owes once it is approved. Use a credit note for returns, billing mistakes and discounts agreed after billing. You do not edit the invoice, so the original stays intact for audit.

Sections in this chapter:

• Add and manage customers
• Set up customer types
• Create a sales order
• Sales order status workflow
• Create a sales invoice
• Sales invoice status workflow
• Record a payment against an invoice
• Track and settle customer payments
• Create a credit note