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Prepayment Invoice vs Purchase Invoice
In a traditional accounting system, there are many different types of invoices - regular invoices, purchase invoices, accounts receivable invoices, prepayment invoices, and more. As an LMIS system with limited accounting functionality, OpenBoxes only supports two types of invoices: purchase invoices and prepayment invoices. Purchase invoices are the standard invoice - this is the type of invoice you use to make a final payment on any good or service, and to mark that line as paid in the system. But purchase invoices can only be processed after an item has been shipped in the system. For vendors that require prepayment, there needs to be a way to process a payment before the items have been delivered. That is where the prepayment invoice comes in. For purchase orders that require prepayment, users can process a special prepayment invoice that will show the payment made before they were delivered. After the items are delivered, a purchase invoice must be created to reconcile the prepayment against the final receipt (more details in the instructions below).
Indicating Prepayment on a Purchase Order
Prepayment invoices can only be processed against purchase orders that have a payment term that includes prepayment. If you do not see the option to generate a prepayment invoice, edit the payments terms on the PO to reflect the percentage prepayment. If you do not have prepayment terms available, they will need to be added by your administrator using the instructions in
Create a prepayment invoice