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Dynamics 365 Community / Forums / Small and medium business | Business Central, N... / Post Sales Order Invoi...
Small and medium business | Business Central, N...
Suggested Answer

Post Sales Order Invoice prior to shipping creating an error

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Posted on by chris_7777au 95

Hi there.

In Purchasing, it's possible to post a Purchase Order as either Receive only, Invoice Only or Receive and Invoice.  I'm trying to do the same thing in Sales Orders and hitting a snag.  From time to time we need to Invoice a sales order out PRIOR to physically shipping the goods (typically when we are exporting).  If I go to a Sales Order and attempt to change the "Qty to Invoice" to any number (i.e. if the Sales Order line was for 100 units, if I attempt to put QTY to Invoice = 100) I get a an error "Validation Results You cannot invoice more than 0 units".  As this doesn't impact inventory quantity, this shouldn't be a problem with inventory quantity as such, but to be sure, I do not have "prevent negative inventory" turned on.

If I Ship & Invoice at the same time, the post completes successfully without an issue.

Any ideas?

Categories:
Dynamics 365 Business Central
Dynamics 365 Business Central
I have the same question (0)
  • TK8782 Profile Picture
    TK8782 18 on at

    Hi Chris,

    If I understand correctly you want to create a prepayment invoice. Invoice prepayments are available in Business Central for this purpose.

    Without prepayment invoice function I do not know any possibility to invoice items which are not yet shipped.

    Invoice Prepayments - Business Central | Microsoft Docs

    Regards Thomas

  • JAngle Profile Picture
    JAngle 133 on at

    Prepayment is the .way to go here as Thomas has explained

  • chris_7777au Profile Picture
    chris_7777au 95 on at

    Hey Thomas.

    No not quite... it's not a pre-payment as the customer terms are 30 days from invoice date.  I'm basically trying to replicate the same functionality in Purchase Orders, where you can receive a P/O only or receive the Purchase Invoice without physically receiving the goods.  I'm trying to Post as Sales Order Invoice (only, not Ship & Invoice).  Our customers collect goods for export from our warehouse.  Our terms are 30 days from invoice but there's a 'gap' between the Sales Invoice (goods are ready to pick up) vs the shipment (goods are collected).  It's exactly the same process as a Purchase Order, where you may receive a Purchase Invoice PRIOR to receiving the goods or vice versa.

    In my thinking, posting the Sales Order as 'shipped' only occurs when the goods physically leave the warehouse.  

  • TK8782 Profile Picture
    TK8782 18 on at

    Hi Chris,

    in my opinion this process is exactly what prepayment invoices do. 

    You have a sales order with an item which will be delivered after invoicing the sales order. 
    Therefore you can create a prepayment invoice. In this invoice you can determine how much of the amount of the sales order (e.g. 100%, 50%) you want to invoice in advance from the customer.
    After creating the prepayment invoice (and receiving the money) you can start the delivery process. 

    As you mentioned in purchase orders it is quite the same. The vendor invoices you in advance. Therefore you create a purchase invoice. Afterwards you receive the goods and post it as a incoming shipment.

    Maybe another user knows another way to do what you want to achieve....I would try to use prepayment invoices for this process because this is what the default of bc offers as functionality.

    Regards

  • chris_7777au Profile Picture
    chris_7777au 95 on at

    Hi Thomas.

    If it's a prepayment invoice, is it possible to ship the goods prior to the invoice is paid?

    Unless I'm mistaken, on the Purchasing side you can enter it both ways (i.e. "invoiced not received" or "received not invoiced").  Anybody can correct me on this if I'm incorrect.  Seems odd that you can dispatch goods without them being invoiced, but not the other way around.  

    I would have thought prepayment invoices were used in situations where you needed to get paid prior to releasing the goods.  In our case we will release the goods when the customers shipping agent collects the goods.

    Worst case we have to assign some area in the warehouse to goods that have been 'shipped' that haven't been collected.  This is possible, but means any of our team looking at BC will not have visibility that a 'shipped order' is sitting in the warehouse waiting on collection, which happens - especially in the current environment of export Seafreight etc.  There are instances where it could be 30 days or more between when we invoice the goods out to the end customer and when their freight agent finally receives a booking on a flight or vessel and collects the freight.  

    It seems odd that the functionality appears there for Purchasing, but not Sales.  

    Appreciate your comments, if you have any feedback on whether you can ship goods that have a prepayment invoice outstanding this would be great.

    Thanks

    Chris.  

  • TK8782 Profile Picture
    TK8782 18 on at

    Hi,

    I am not quite sure but do you really have to invoice the items or do you just want to secure the stock for a sales order? If you do not need an invoice in advance for the customer why not using reservations for the items. In this case you can reserve the needed quantity of the sales order. When the goods are released then you can post the sales order (ship and invoice).

    Another idea which comes to my mind is to use logistic processes, so that the items in the sales order are posted into an outgoing warehouse shipment. When the customer picks up the goods then you post the warehouse shipment and generate delivery note and invoice.

    So the question is.....do you really need an invoice in advance or is it only to secure the items in stock for the sales order (reservation).

    Some links for the mentioned features:

    docs.microsoft.com/.../inventory-how-to-reserve-items

    chrisdsilvablog.wordpress.com/.../

    docs.microsoft.com/.../warehouse-manage-warehouse

  • AeliusColin Profile Picture
    AeliusColin 10 on at

    Hi There, I'm just curious if you have figured out the answer to this - as I am in a very similar boat. No one seems to have a real answer, and our partner just told us the only way is to use prepayment invoices.

    Sure, the prepayment invoice works, but seems like a very unnecessary step.

    When clicking Posting>Post, you are given the option to a) ship b) invoice or c) ship & invoice so WHY does invoice only not work (when ship and invoice does, and preview posting works fine)??

    To top it off - this has worked for me a couple of times randomly, but most of the time says "there is nothing to post."

    Anyway I digress, I've obviously been driven batty with some of the strange anomalies of BC - my apologies for hijacking your thread, I hope you have found a practical solution...

    Thanks.

  • Suggested answer
    Inge M. Bruvik Profile Picture
    Inge M. Bruvik 1,105 Moderator on at

    Hi AeliusColin

    Your partner have given you the correct answer for your question. The solution is to use prepayment invoice for cases like this.

    Unless you want to do some heavy customization that creates a solution that basically does what prepayment does.

    The reason there is a certain process for this in Business Central is to make sure you get the correct costing and fulfill regulatory demands among others.

    F.ex in my region the time of invoice (unless other specifically agreed on) is the time where the legal ownership of the sold goods goes from seller to buyer. And therefor having inventory that you not legally own in your inventory value is a breach of regulations.

    Maybe you think that using prepayment is some extra work. But i think the pain of customizing this and at the same time make sure your costing and inventory are correct will be a bigger pain.

    Instead you should discuss with your partner if certain things around the prepayment process can be customized to make it more efficient for you, at least that is my recommendation.

  • AeliusColin Profile Picture
    AeliusColin 10 on at

    I appreciate your response and more detailed explanation Inge, I just don't see why there is even an option to just invoice out of the box if it doesn't work without heavy customization. Either way, prepayment invoices are working fine for me I just hate them because it's not a smooth transition through the sales process.

    Thanks.

  • Suggested answer
    Inge M. Bruvik Profile Picture
    Inge M. Bruvik 1,105 Moderator on at

    What you can do is to submit this as an product idea at experience.dynamics.com/.../

    The Microsoft will evaluate it and the community can vote for it.

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