From invoice to payment

Racking supplied to a customer on credit: an invoice for 5,520, sent on WhatsApp, with 2,000 settled by bank transfer.

1. 1.We start in Invoicing, not at the till. The difference is that this is a credit sale: the goods have gone and the money has not arrived, so there has to be a document that records the debt.
2. 2.A new invoice. Note the Outstanding counter at the top — that is the figure this invoice is about to move.
3. 3.The customer is picked from an existing file rather than typed as free text. The file carries the tax number and the mobile — which is what gets printed on the invoice and what it is sent to.
4. 4.The line description is written the way the customer will read it. This text is what appears on the invoice, in the WhatsApp message, and in any later disagreement.
5. 5.Six racks. Quantities are stored in thousandths, so half a kilo or a quarter of a tonne stays an exact integer instead of losing precision in a division.
6. 6.The price before tax. Watch the Total column compute as you type — with the same functions the server recomputes on save, so the screen and the document cannot disagree.
7. 7.Tax is worked out per line and then added up, not applied once to the grand total. The difference is halalas, but it is the difference between your invoice and the customer’s agreeing: 4,800 net, 720 tax, 5,520 in total.
8. 8.Issuing is the moment the invoice becomes a document. Only here does it take its sequential number — because a deleted draft must not leave a gap — and only here is its entry written into the books.
9. 9.The button opens WhatsApp with a message already written: the number, the amount and the due date. JooDax sends nothing on your behalf — you review it and send it from your own number, so it arrives from the business rather than from a system.
10. 10.The message is written and waiting for you to press send. Two weeks later the customer transfers part of the amount, so we record it. And the method is not a formality: Cash lands in the cash account and anything else lands in the bank account.
11. 11.Two thousand out of 5,520. A part payment is a normal state with a name of its own — neither “unpaid” nor “paid”.
12. 12.Record it. A part payment is a state of its own with a name of its own — neither “unpaid” nor “paid” — and the reference you type here is what will tie the transfer on the bank statement to this particular invoice.
13. 13.The status now reads Partly paid and 3,520 is outstanding. That figure is in no field: it is the total less what arrived, computed on every read, so it cannot fall out of step with reality. And now: what did all of this do to the books?
14. 14.Two entries, not one, both written automatically with no posting step. The lower one is the invoice: receivables debited 5,520 against sales of 4,800 and tax payable of 720 — meaning the revenue was recognised on the day it was issued, not the day the money arrived. The upper one is the payment, and it never touches sales, because the sale happened once: bank up two thousand, receivables down two thousand. Debt turned into money, and 3,520 still stands against the customer.