Invoiced/Cash Saled

Terminology Tip: Cash Sale and Invoice are highly related in the Sales Order workflow. We use the generic term billing status when we need to talk about the order's status with respect to whether it is either invoicedor cash saled.

This part of the flow can be a bit tricky to get your head around, particularly because every country and business does things slightly differently.

You should start by understanding what an 'Order' really is. In traditional retail (bricks and mortar, physical store), there isn't really the concept of an 'Order' per se. You go into a store, pick out what you want, take it to the cash desk, pay, and take the goods away with you with a receipt for your payment. This process is different for online sellers. A cutomer places an 'Order' on your site. This 'Order' might be paid for immediately, or if the customer has payment terms, it might be slated for payment in 60 days. It might be for collection of the goods the very same day, or it might be for delivery in a month.

So an 'Order', in itself, is just an intent to buy. You might think of it as a shell, or container, for everytihng that comes next (billing, stock commitment, payment, dispatch).

Billing = Cash Sale or Invoice or Both

By 'billing' an order (either Cash Sale or Invoice), you create the obligation to pay, even if that obligation is simultaneous with the actual payment. For normal web orders, this obligation is created simultaneously with the order itself, and probably at the same time as the payment. That's why it can be hard to understand, because for most web orders, order creation, billing and payment all happen at once. Just know that they are, or at least can be, logically spearated out in Pakk.

Here are some notes about how the billing logic works in Pakk:

• for web orders where the customer has explicitly requested an invoice (even if they are paying there and then), the order is invoiced and an invoice is created

• for all web orders with an 'invoice flow' payment method (i.e. any payment method which is not 'immediate payment'), the order is always invoiced and an invoice is created

• for web orders where the customer has not requested an invoice and is paying now (e.g by card), the order is cash saled and a cash sale is created

• the PDF document that goes with an invoice is an invoice or paid invoice

• the PDF document that goes with a cash sale is a receipt

• for manually placed orders, you can choose whether to cash sale or invoice

• cash sales and invoices each have their own sequential numbering scheme. This is important as most authorities will want to see unbroken numbering sequences for invoices and receipts/cash sales.

• cash sales can be invoiced. This is useful if a customer orders as an individual but later requests an invoice. In this case, the order would be both cash saled and invoiced and would have both a 'cash sale reference' and an 'invoice reference'

• on the othe hand, an order which is invoiced cannot also then be cash saled

• in almost all cases, a cash sale will be paid for in the moment. Pakk does technically allow for unpaid cash sales but it's really only to allow for splitting of the order payment into multiple separate payments, potentially with different payment methods. Generally, an unpaid Cash Sale is in an erroneous state.

• when manually billing an order as a cash sale, a payment for the full amount is automatically created at the same time using the payment method selected on the order. You can edit this post hoc if you need to create split payments.

Thankfully, billing is a bit simpler than committment with regards to status. This is due to the fact that an order is either fully invoiced or not invoiced or fully cash saled or not cash saled, i.e. in contrast to the other status axes, we don't allow forpartially on billing status.

If for some reason, you need to partially invoice an order, the best way to acheive something analogous is to split the order up.

Remember Although it feels counterintuitive, orders can be paid before being invoiced (resulting in a situation where you technically owe the customer money, rather than vice versa). We only point this out to underline the fact that invoice status and paid status are independent of each other.

Quick / Bulk Invoicing

To invoice a single order, just set its invoiced at field to the invoice date. To perform the same operation on many orders at once, use the Invoice bulk action from the Pending Invoice list view.