How to Create and Track an Invoice

TABLE OF CONTENTS

How you can benefit from creating original Invoices:

  • Create one flow for the Invoice payment simulation and record the creation process.

  • Track approvals and payments to prevent maverick spending.

  • Track spending that does not require a Purchase Order.

In Precoro, there are several ways you can create an Invoice: 

  • Create an original Invoice from scratch without a Purchase Order.

  • Generate the Invoice from an existing Purchase Order, follow this link to see how it works.

How to Manually Create an Invoice


To create a new Invoice manually, follow these steps:


1. Navigate to the Invoice module in the left-side menu and press Create.

2. Fill out all the required fields and click Create.

 

When adding a supplier on the document creation page and redacting it on the Draft stage, you can either choose the existing Supplier from the drop-down list or create a new one by clicking the Add New Supplier button. 

Also, users with the Supplier Management Role can access the Supplier’s page directly via an active hyperlink.


3. Add items:

  • Add Item button allows you to select items from the catalog.
  • Add Empty Row allows you to enter the items manually, or Import Items to import items via Excel.
  • Import Items allows you to upload items from the file in bulk in two quick steps.
  • Update Items allows you to update the added items in bulk in a few quick steps. You can Update items in the Invoice document with Draft and In Revision statuses. Find the step-by-step instructions on items update — here.

Also, you can use the functionality to add items directly through Invoice without having to transfer them to Catalog manually. Find a guide on how to set up and use this function here.

To edit the added items you have to take a document for Revision
You can edit Item SKU and Name fields in Invoices from Purchase Order on In Revision or Draft statuses.


Note that you can enter the negative item values in Invoices. Please learn how this functionality works here.



4. You can Add Attachments to your invoices and see them in related Purchase Orders if there are any. 



5. If your Invoice is in Draft or In Revision, you can edit the location and supplier for it. You can only choose a supplier who has the same currency as the document you are editing.

Before editing the fields, please read the following article: Field Logic Behavior after Edit and Revise Actions in Documents.

Please note: You cannot edit this information if you create a direct invoice from the Purchase Order. For more details, see How to Create and Track a Purchase Order.


6. Double-check the information and click Confirm.


7. If your process requires approval, the Invoice will be sent to the authorized approvers, and the Invoice’s status will be changed to Pending.

You can compare the changes made in the Invoice using the Revision History button.

In Revision History, you can see all the attachment alterations as well.


Additional information on how to use this function can be found here.

8. You can always download the created document in the XLSX or PDF formats by clicking on the corresponding buttons.

If the document has a related Credit Note, additional Credits, Paid, and To Pay parameters will be added automatically.


Budget Breakdown in Invoices


When you have added a Budget and activated a Budget Breakdown function to your Invoice document you will see the Budget Breakdown button below the item lines.

More information about the Budget Breakdown function can be found following this link.


Please note that the Budget Breakdown button will display in documents on Draft, Approved, and In Revision statuses.

Duplicated Supplier Invoice and Credit Note Numbers


You can activate the Warn if Supplier Invoice or Credit Note # is duplicated function to prevent the creation of duplicate numbers for documents.
Please note that you will not be able to enable this setting if the duplicates already exist in your company.
To be able to activate this setting, please edit and change the existing duplicate document numbers manually.
 

Invoice Without Receipt Blocking Functionality


You can block the document’s Invoice Confirmation without Receipt. After the Receipt creation, the Invoice will be automatically forwarded to the next Step in your Workflow.


How to set up:

  • Activate a checkbox in Configuration → Basic Settings → Documents Setup → Invoice → Block Invoice Confirmation without Receipt.

    You can also select whom you wish to prompt to create Receipts. Those responsible will receive an email notification.

Please note that this checkbox is not activated by default.

  • The Payment Terms field will be required when creating a Purchase Order or Invoice from PO with the checkbox activated. In Invoice documents with Payment Terms → Postpayment, the Confirmation button will be automatically blocked if not all items were received. See this section on how you can automate and simplify this process.
  • On the Show Invoice page, you can see an added Received column in items, which displays the received item quantity (same as in the related Purchase Order).
  • When a user attempts to Confirm an Invoice without a Receipt, the document will obtain a new Pending Receipt status. With it, the Invoice will not be available for Confirmation until the Receipt is created, and afterward, the Invoice will be automatically forwarded to the next Step in your Workflow.
  • To promptly filter data, use the Invoiced but Not Received Infocard when creating Receipts for Purchase Orders:

Also, on the Select Items to add to the Receipt page, you can find a Quantity in Pending Invoices column that displays information on how many items are currently in the Invoices that are waiting for Receipts to be created (Invoices with Pending Receipts Statuses).

Please note that the Quantity in Pending Invoices displays information that is part of the Invoice Without Receipt Blocking Functionality. Without that functionality enabled, the Quantity in Pending Invoices column will display 0.


Additional Payment Terms Setting Activation 


Before proceeding to the Invoice without Receipt Blocking functionality take a look at additional Payment Terms settings that can help you manage it. Open  Configuration → Basic Settings→ Documents Setup → Invoices section:


  • The Required Payment Terms in PO and Invoice checkbox functions in the following way:
    • If activated, users will not be able to create a document with the Payment Terms field blank.
    • If disabled, users will be able to create a document without the specified Payment Terms.

Invoices will only still be blocked if the user sets the Payment Terms to Post Payment in the document.

  • The Default Payment Terms checkbox is not activated by default, and it functions in the following way:

 
  • With the Default Payment Terms checkbox enabled, users, when creating new PO or Invoice documents, will get the Payment Terms field automatically set to Postpayment in the document, even if in the Supplier card, the payment terms information is not specified or there are several payment terms added or only the Prepayment option is chosen. For those Suppliers that you add to the document and who did not have the Postpayment option added, it will be created and added automatically.
  • With the Default Payment Terms checkbox disabled, you will be able to select only those terms that are added to the Supplier cards. If the Supplier does not have a Postpayment option added, it will not be added automatically.

 

Both Required Payment Terms and Default Payment Terms settings can be activated without enabling the Block Invoice Confirmation without Receipt functionality.


Customize Notification Process

You can customize the notification process for the Block Invoice Confirmation Functionality by selecting the needed options:


  • Notify All Users with Invoice Roles When New Receipt is Created — if this setting is activated, then all users who have Invoice Roles will receive the following email notification when a new receipt is created. That way, the person responsible for payment will know when to proceed:
  • Not To Send Mail Notifications On Prompting Receipt Creation — if this setting is activated, then nobody in your company will get an email notification prompting them to create a document for the Pending Receipt Invoice. 

If you have already selected the option in Who will be prompted to create Receipts, and then you have activated the Not To Send Mail Notifications On Prompting Receipt Creation setting, then users will not be notified.

How to Track an Invoice


Track the invoice statuses directly from the
Invoice management page. You can gather the basic needed information without having to actually open the document by Status in the corresponding column.

  • Draft — the Invoice was created but not submitted yet. The initiator can still edit it and add/modify the items. 
  • Pending — the Invoice was submitted and sent for approval to the responsible authorizing user.
  • Approved — the Invoice was approved by the responsible authorizing user.
  • Rejected — the Invoice was not approved by one of the approvers in the approval flow. Therefore, it will not be paid.
  • Paid/Partly paid — the Invoice is paid/partly paid.
  • Canceled — the initiator revoked the invoice.
  • Pending Confirmation — the Invoice created for the PO has some discrepancies, and the PO initiator needs to review these changes and approve them in the PO first. You can proceed with the Invoice only after the differences are approved in PO.

To expedite and optimize searches you can utilize the advanced or fast set of filters available on the document management page.

Fast filters on the panel above the document’s list will help you get the needed results quickly whereas advanced filters will allow you to go through the search more in-depth.

Find more useful information on how to set and use filters in Precoro here.


To use advanced filters for Invoices click Filters and set the parameters you need in the appropriate fields, then click:

  • Filter results — to apply the selected filtering parameters.
  • Save current filter — to save the selected filtering instantly.
  • Reset all filters — to reset the selected filtering parameters.

You can filter results by both Items Custom Fields and Documents Custom Fields in Invoices but first, you need to activate them as described in the instructions here.

You can also use the specific payment filters to find needed information faster:

  • Payment Date filter added on the Invoice management page available in the advanced set of filters where you can select the needed date range: 

The Payment Date filter will sort out the information using the Payment date field from Payments

  • The Payer filter on the Payments management page in Precoro is available in the advanced set of filters where you can select the needed people from the drop-down list. Also, note that you can add multiple Payers to the filter at once: