A lot of things have changed in our records and I feel pretty overwhelmed trying to figure out what exactly is causing all the discrepancies. Items that were previously all on hand some are now not on hand etc.
On “Customers”, “Qty to deliver” no longer shows up, it’s all “0” even if something was not delivered.
I have read through the information, but I don’t understand and I don’t know what changes we have to make if any. I also don’t know if we need to change current procedures or if we can continue as before.
Support is only through forums and I’m not soliciting for help, but other than the “accountants” part on the website is there any other place one can look for help with this?
It’s a big speed bump for us and I’m having a difficult time knowing where I can turn for an explanation.
To be honest I’m dreading the responses I will get, but I have to give it a go
There is not. However, it is easier to get help if you illustrate supported by screenshots each issue you are facing one by one. The most important change as far as I can note is that you need to use Sales Orders and Delivery Notes if you want to track quantities. This is also explained in forum discussions.
At the moment when we get an inquiry from a customer we:
Prepare a ‘Sales quote’.
Customer confirms the order and we “Copy to new sales invoice”.
Prepare the order and issue a delivery note.
Now then we would have to:
Prepare a ‘Sales quote’.
Customer confirms the order and we “Copy to new sales order” and then also copy it to a ‘Sales invoice’?
Prepare the order and issue a delivery note.
I apologize for being a moron, but I don’t really get it. I thought before what mattered was whether the items were marked as “track qty to deliver/receive” and if an invoice was issued for that item it would be tracked. Do we now have to go back and do sales orders for all old orders to get the record in line?
You articulate the new process well. The Sales Order also helps to prepare the delivery note. The Sales Invoice is the request for payment after delivery. Step 4 would be recording the payment against the Sales Invoice.
Others can advise what you need to do with “old ones”. We are not using Manager but a POS for sales in almost all our businesses including inventory and invoices, except for farm business.
Due to difficulty of enforcing payment etc, we don’t issue the invoice (in 90% of the cases) until payment is done. The customer does the payment with the quote as a reference. Once payment has been received we “copy to invoice” and then “delivery note” and “New receipt”.
Another reason for this is that our VAT tax authority only considers the date of the tax receipt and not the invoice date.
So now then we have to:
Issue a quote.
Quote is confirmed and paid.
We issue a sales invoice, a receipt and a sales order?
Should it be in that order or the order doesn’t really matter?
I guess I still have a hard time understanding why we have to add an extra document into this.
As your Sales Quote is the basis for payment you can skip it and directly issue a Sales order instead. If the title would confuse your Customer change it to Sales quote.
Because the Customer has already Paid you follow with the other steps, i.e. copy “Sales Order” to “Delivery note” and then to the “Sales Invoice” and record the “Payment” in the view screen of the invoice.
Strange that a tax authority would not accept a tax invoice and only receipts. You may need to consult an accountant, meanwhile you can provide a link to this tax authority’s website as it should be well documented.
Enable the relevant Inventory Tab Columns see example screenshot below:
I was not really clear on the differences between the “Sales quote” and the “Sales order”. I’m still not quite sure other than as you say a “Sales order” is required to track what has been delivered.
If a customer doesn’t want to go ahead with a “Sales order” it will not have any implications with “qty to to deliver”? Would we have to delete any “Sales order” that doesn’t end as a sale?
After reading in the guide about sales orders I can see that they don’t have financial or inventory implications, which is good, but a bit weird for me (maybe cause I’m no accountant) why it’s then necessary for tracking what has been delivered when before the sales invoice would be used for that (if the item had “track quantity to deliver” enabled).
I have argued with our tax authority for many years. As per the law, I believe the tax invoice date is what matters, but since they implemented their new electronic receipt system all they care about is the receipt date and the reason the two might not have the same date is because an unpaid invoice is worth nothing here.
For instance we use DHL for quite a lot of shipping. They will send their invoices and sometimes the tax receipt will be issued the following month (they are just slow in issuing them). This is a headache for us as in order for our VAT reports to be accurate we would then have to change the dates of the purchase invoice in our system. We are trying to move away from this as it’s very difficult to work like that (ie impossible).
At the moment we have both new and old activated because there are so many items that previously were ok, but now they are not so I’m trying to figure out what I need to do to get it all straight again.
Old “Qty to deliver” says “-122” because we have a delivery note to a customer that has not yet been invoiced (happens at the end of the month, one of our exceptions). The new “qty to deliver” says “0”.
Yes you are right. The sticky situation in my opinion comes from the fact that an unpaid invoice has no value so companies are reluctant to issue the electronic invoice before payment has been made.
The process of cancelling an electronic invoice is currently non-existent do it remains in their system even after following the procedure (which involves writing a letter).
To call it an invoice seems a bit wrong as it’s the same system for any type of purchase in any shop regardless if it’s to a business or not.
Currently we ask our customer to pay if the quote is accepted. Once payment is received we issue the “Sales invoice” and the “Electronic invoice”.
Sales order
From a test with the sales order the issue for me is that it straight away shows as “quantity to deliver” meaning we would have to delete the sales order should the customer not wish to proceed with the order. I assume than that the information in the old guide is incorrect (makes sense), but the new guide is a bit tricky to look through (imo).
I would strongly advise to review your business policies and procedures. I am not even sure if this would pass and audit. Customers not paying, goods received by customer but no invoice issued nor payments made against it. You contradict some of your messages where you say on after actually receiving the payment you account for it. The tax authorities in your and many other countries are putting e-invoicing systems in place and contrary to what you state like any invoice these are considered that the transaction was done and record the value. The payment against that value is a transaction recorded as Payment and not essential for tax authorities as the e-invoice is their evidence.
So your revised business practices and policies should be communicated to your Customers. I would also recommend to solicit a tax consultant to prevent serious issues.
It falls back on the fact that if a company doesn’t pay an invoice, there is no way (feasible way, in theory there is a way) to collect. If a company defaults on a payment the tax authority would never accept it so companies don’t issue the tax invoice before payment has been done (as the company would not only lose the products but also cash (VAT) on behalf of the non-paying company). I apologize for my horrible terminology.
I don’t think it’s strange to invoice a customer at the end month, but perhaps I’m wrong.
The customer in question order a few times every month. At the end of the month we issue the invoice for everything that was delivered.
For regular clients, tax invoice is issued once the customer has confirmed their order (which is done via payment, using the quote as a reference).
If we don’t do this we have so many orders that are confirmed and then never paid which means we have to cancel tax invoices.
For the long term clients who we have different agreements with we issue delivery notes for all their orders and then 1 tax invoice at the end of the month.
Edit: I’m curious how this work in other countries. For all our international suppliers, we have to pay towards the quote (a deposit of 50% or the full amount depending). Once we have paid they will issue the invoice. I assumed this was pretty regular practice, but maybe it’s just for companies from “weird” countries where they will have a nightmare recovering any nonpaid orders.
Yes, which is why we try to get payment first, but there are times where we make exceptions. Ideally though an unpaid invoice has a value, but if the legal system doesn’t work smoothly it’s not the case.
I agree with this conceptually, and perhaps I’m wrong, but it doesn’t work here.
Once we have issued the tax invoice the tax authority will not allow it to be cancelled and at the same time there is no legal framework (repo etc) to get funds from companies that doesn’t pay their bills.
If we issue the tax invoice, we have given the goods to the customer and we have to pay that VAT on behalf of the customer to the tax authority.
We have no way other than relying on the customer to do the right thing. It is in my opinion not sustainable.
Our work around is (just like international suppliers do to us) is that the clients sends their orders and receives a quote. If they are ok to proceed they will pay and send the proof of payment. Upon receipt of payment we will issue the tax invoice, receipt and delivery note.
My expertise is not in accounting (no big surprise there) so perhaps I’m just completely stupid here, but there is a reason Tanzania is ranked 141 out of 190 countries in ease of doing business.
I’m not sure why a sales invoice (together with the delivery note) is no longer used to track what has been delivered or not to a customer (assuming the items are ticked as “track qty to deliver”).
For us now it means:
Customer sends their order.
We issue a ‘sales quote’.
Customer agrees and pays.
We copy the ‘sales quote’ to a ‘sales invoice’, and issue the delivery note and receipt.
If the order for any reason cannot be fully delivered we now need to copy this ‘sales invoice’ to a ‘sales order’ otherwise manager doesn’t track it in the new “qty to deliver”.
