Previous Invoice Carried Forward Balance

Hi Guys,

Was just wondering if you were able to add in the ability on invoices to show previous invoice balance (Carried Forward Amount of all outstanding previous invoices) on previous invoices.

This would be a nice feature to have and a godsend for overdue accounts.

this is currently not possible.
this has also been discussed earlier on the forum.
it may or may not be implemented in future updates.

I doubt this will be implemented. What you describe is a statement, not a sales invoice. Statements already exist, in two varieties. From an accounting perspective, an invoice is a financial transaction creating a new obligation for payment. Each one is independent of those that may have come before.

i prefer this to be implemented.

most businesses giving credit would have a payment schedule like every week or fortnight or monthly for all the invoices received during that period. and most customers prefer to see their outstanding dues which is shown as the balance due on the latest invoice.

i know every user will have their own perspective regarding this.

but even if its implemented i do not think it would harm anyone.
the reasons are,

  1. businesses who receive immediate payments will never have to worry about the total outstanding of the customer shown on the next invoice. in their case the balance due will only show the balance of the current invoice anyway.
  2. businesses who give credit, in most cases, would prefer the customer to be aware of their total dues towards them.

this can even be implemented wrt the preferred accounting type set by the user. users who prefer cash basis accounting would not need this i guess.

The fact remains, what you are describing is a statement of account, not an invoice. And I don’t see that it has anything to do with the choice between accrual and cash basis accounting.

Can you print out a statement per customer?

we can keep discussing this from our different perspectives but that would not provide any solution.

in our country statements are usually sent quarterly or at the end of a financial year to check if everything matches. both parties usually sign a hard copy and file with their records to avoid any future disputes.

it is just easier to know what is to be paid in total to a supplier on the invoice itself.
most businesses are into paperless transactions and invoices reach them almost immediately by email. so there is a very negligible chance of a payment being received by the time an invoice reaches the customer with a wrong balance due printed.

all i am saying is why not provide and let the user choose.

Yes. See the Guide: Manager Guides.

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NIce. So it is basically printing two documents. Attach the statement to the new invoice. Not very printing friendly, but… yeah, it works.

Hi,
Team Manager can you guys add that option to show previous invoice balance on new sale invoice? We really need that option.Add that option in my manager and if there will be any fee for it. We will pay.
Thank you.

There is no personalized development. All users see the same features, except desktop users do not have multiple users.

Continuing on the same topic, I would like to see this feature added i.e. Adding previous balance (Account receivable) of a customer to the latest invoice. However, until this feature is enabled officially in the software, I would highly appreciate if someone can give answer to my question: Can we implement this feature ourselves (programmatically) using custom themes? If yes, then any tip or idea to start with?

@Karimi, you cannot do this with a custom theme, because the data is not available for a sales invoice. Themes only change the appearance of data already present.

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Thanks for your reply, Tut. Any news or possibility of this feature to be added in near future or so? I would love to see this because I run a small business which gives credit in most cases and 99% of the invoices are sent to customers as printed hard copies.

You could include a copy of the Customer Transaction statement showing the unpaid invoices

I think it is unlikely that the c/forward balance will appear on an invoice

This would cause numerous problems
What should you print if you reprint an old invoice?
What should you print if you have two new invoices?
…
and so on

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These are some exceptional cases that you’ve raised maybe from technical implementation perspective. For me, it doesn’t matter if I’ve two or three or multiple new invoices, whatever the customer’s previous balance (account receivable) is should be posted on the latest invoice. However, I partially agree with you on “what should you print if you reprint an old invoice?” but it can be discussed.

Hi @Tut, can we put this into ideas category? Maybe changing the topic as “Request for adding customer’s outstanding balance (account receivable) on the latest sales invoice” and regarding implementation it could be a checkbox like Total amount in words and Hide due date etc. Just a thought…

I see no purpose. What you describe is not a sales invoice, but a statement. For those who use statement billing, there are already two options.