Invoices

A Client Invoice is the document that bills your customer and commits the sale to your books. Unlike Estimates, Quotes, and Purchase Orders — which are workflow-only — an invoice changes your Accounts Receivable balance, your VAT output, and your Sales figures as soon as you send it.

Status lifecycle

Status	What it means	What you’ll see on your books
`draft`	Editable, not yet issued.	No change.
`pending`	Internal review before sending.	No change.
`sent`	Delivered to the client.	The sale shows up under Sales Revenue, VAT moves to Tax Liability, and the outstanding balance appears under Accounts Receivable.
`approved`	Accepted by the client (optional stage).	Same as `sent`, if the invoice wasn’t already there.
`void`	Cancelled after being issued.	The original posting is reversed.
`cancelled`	Cancelled before being issued.	Reversed only if the invoice had already been sent.

Moving an invoice back to draft from a sent state also reverses the original posting, so your totals stay accurate.

The Settlement Status (unpaid, partial, paid, overpaid, refunded) is a separate view on whether the invoice has been paid — see Settlement below.

Line items

Each invoice line captures an item, a description, a quantity, a unit price, an optional per-line discount, and a tax code. Invoice lines also carry a Markup percentage, which feeds the profitability figure on any Job the line is linked to.

Discount and surcharge items

You can drop catalog Discount and Surcharge items onto an invoice the same way you would any other catalog item. Acqui applies the configured rate or amount automatically and keeps gross sales, surcharge recoveries, and discounts visible as separate lines on your P&L, so you can see each adjustment rather than a blended net figure. See Finance → Line Items for setting them up and Chart of Accounts → Adjustment lines for the account detail.

Tax

Tax is calculated per line from the line’s Tax Code and Tax Rate and rolled up into the invoice totals. There is no invoice-wide tax override. Zero-rated, exempt, and non-taxable codes (NONE, EXEMPT, ZERO, or leaving the tax code blank) are recognised automatically.

Jobs and profitability

Link an invoice line to a Job using the Linked Job field on the line. The revenue on that line then counts toward the job’s actual revenue and profitability figures. Editing, voiding, or refunding the invoice recalculates the job’s margins automatically.

Settlement

An invoice can be settled by one payment or several. Each payment is recorded against the invoice and reduces the outstanding balance until it reaches zero. You can mix cash, card, online, and customer credit on the same invoice.

The Paid Date is set automatically when the balance reaches zero — you do not enter it manually.

Applying customer credit to an invoice

If the client is holding a credit balance with you — for example from a prior overpayment — the Invoice drawer shows a Customer Credit row under the Paid Date with the available amount and an Apply button. Clicking Apply settles the invoice with the smaller of the available credit or the outstanding amount. See Statement of Account for a full walkthrough and for sending a client their account statement.

Converting a paid invoice into customer credit (deposits)

When a client pays an invoice as a deposit rather than against a specific bill — for example a venue minimum-spend deposit ahead of an event — open the paid invoice and use the Convert to Customer Credit row. It shows the paid amount and a Grant button. Clicking Grant posts a journal that converts the paid amount into a customer-credit balance for that client, available to draw against later (e.g. on the bar tab on the night of the event, or against another invoice).

The button only appears when the invoice is fully paid, has a client attached, and isn’t draft, void, or cancelled. Granting is idempotent per invoice — once converted, the button is hidden and clicking again is a no-op.

Refunds

Refunding a settled invoice reverses the relevant payments and moves the settlement status to refunded. Online refunds are processed through the same gateway that took the original payment.

Stock

Invoices are billing records — raising an invoice does not move stock. Stock is reduced at the point of sale (when a POS sale is rung up), not when you later bill for it.