How sales invoices work
A sales invoice is the bill you send a customer for a sales order. Every invoice has its own number, invoice date, due date, total and balance, and it's where the order's receivable is posted to your books. You find them all under Orders → Sales Invoices, and each sales order lists its own on its Invoices tab.
One invoice per order, or several
How many invoices an order gets depends on its invoicing policy:
| Policy | Invoices per order | When they're created | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per order | Exactly one | As soon as the order is approved (leaves draft) | Direct-to-consumer and marketplace orders. This is how every account starts. |
| Per shipment | One for each shipment | Automatically, as each shipment ships | Retail and EDI customers who expect one invoice per shipment |
| Manual | As many as you need | When you create them | Deposits, progress billing, invoicing part of an order |
A customer can also be set to Consolidated — one invoice per period, which combines their shipped, uninvoiced orders into one weekly or monthly invoice. See Send sales invoices to customers.
The policy is saved on each order when it's created, so changing a default never changes orders you already have. See Choose how orders are invoiced.
Order invoices
An order on Per order has one order invoice, marked with an Order invoice chip on the list. It mirrors the order: its lines, prices and payments are the order's, so you change them on the order, not on the invoice. Opening one shows a note that reads "Order invoice. This order is invoiced as a whole (Per order), so this invoice mirrors sales order … and posts from it. Change lines, prices and payments on the order."
An order invoice follows the order's life: it's issued when the order is approved and voided if the order is cancelled.
Invoices billed from shipments or quantities
On Per shipment and Manual orders, each invoice keeps its own copy of the lines it bills: the quantities, prices, freight share and tax at the moment it was created. Later changes to the order don't alter an issued invoice. The order's Invoices tab shows what's been invoiced, what's still uninvoiced and how each shipment, invoice and payment line up. See Invoice shipments and partial orders.
Statuses
Every invoice has three separate readings, each with its own column on the list:
| Reading | Values | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Draft, Issued, Void | Where the document is. A draft has no number yet and can still be edited or deleted. An issued invoice is locked: it's numbered, posted to your books and owed. A voided invoice keeps its number but no longer counts. |
| Payment | Unpaid, Partially paid, Paid | How much of the total has been paid or credited. |
| Due status | Not due, Due in n days, Due today, Overdue n days, Paid | Where the balance stands against the due date. |
Issued invoices are never edited. To correct one, you credit it, add a supplementary invoice, or void it. See Correct an issued invoice.
Due dates from terms
An invoice's due date comes from the customer's Payment Terms (for example Net 30), counted from the invoice date. When an invoice has no due date of its own, SKU.io works it out from the terms. The list shows these with a small from terms hint under the date. The Overdue and Due in 7 days cards, the due-status chips and the Receivables Aging report all use the same date. Drafts are never overdue.
Set terms on the customer's Settings tab. See Set payment terms and a credit limit.
Money on account
A payment taken on the sales order, rather than on an invoice, is applied to the order's issued invoices automatically, oldest due date first. Anything left over stays on account for the order and is applied to the next invoice you issue: the new-invoice page says, for example, "$1,700.00 on account will be applied". See Record payments on sales invoices.
Where invoices reach your books
Each issued invoice posts the order's receivable to your ledger and, if you've connected Xero or QuickBooks Online, syncs there as an invoice. An order on Per order posts once, on its order invoice. An order billed per shipment posts one entry per invoice. See Sales invoices and your accounting.