Quotations, invoices and returns in Skyline Nexus ERP

Quotations, invoices and returns, in brief

A sale in Skyline Nexus ERP can travel through several documents before it is finished: a quotation or draft that commits nothing, a final invoice once the customer agrees, a payment recorded against that invoice, and, if goods come back, a sales return that acts as a credit note. Each stage is its own document, not an edit of the last one.

This guide follows that chain end to end: raising a quotation or draft, turning it into an invoice, which layout the invoice prints on, and reversing part or all of a sale with a return. Our guide on how to record a sale covers the tax calculation and the ledger posting behind a finished sale in detail, and our guide on invoice layouts and numbering covers building the schemes and layouts themselves; this guide is about the document lifecycle that sits around both.

Before you start

Raising anything beyond a plain sale needs direct_sell.access, and the customer should already exist as a contact if the document is to carry their name and tax details onto a Standard invoice. Before the first invoice of the day, check that the business location already has an invoice numbering scheme and an invoice layout assigned for both POS and Sale, since a missing scheme stops a final invoice from being created at all. A business selling stock also needs the products on the quotation or draft to already exist with a price set, the same as for any other sale.

• direct_sell.access, to raise a draft, quotation, proforma or direct sale
• The customer set up as a contact, for a Standard invoice with their details
• An invoice numbering scheme and invoice layout already assigned to the location
• quotation.view_all or quotation.view_own, and draft.view_all or draft.view_own, to see the lists

Three ways to hold a sale before it is final

Sale, Add Draft keeps a part-built sale for later without asking the customer to commit to anything; List Drafts shows every one still open. Sale, Add Quotation, or Direct Quotation for a one-screen version, raises a price quote that is not yet a sale of any kind, listed at List quotations. Add Proforma raises a proforma invoice, a quote formatted to look like an invoice, often used to satisfy a customer's own purchasing process or an advance-payment request, listed at List Proforma. None of the three reduces stock, none appears on a VAT return, and, importantly, none of the three uses up an invoice number.

Which one to use is mostly a matter of convention: a draft is usually internal, unfinished business; a quotation is a formal offer sent to the customer; a proforma is closer to a bill in appearance, sent when the customer's own process needs something that looks like an invoice before goods or an official invoice can follow.

Converting to an invoice: the moment it gets a real invoice number

A draft, quotation or proforma is given its own reference number the moment it is created, but that reference is never part of the invoice numbering sequence: Skyline Nexus ERP only draws a number from the location's invoice scheme once a document's status becomes final. Convert to invoice, on a quotation or draft, or Convert to Proforma Invoice, turning a proforma into a final invoice, is the action that flips the status and, in that same moment, hands the document its first real invoice number.

This matters for anyone reconciling invoice numbers to a sequence, an auditor especially: raising and abandoning ten quotations never creates a gap in the invoice sequence, because none of them ever drew a number from it. Only a document that reaches final status, whether started as a plain sale or converted from a quotation, draft or proforma, appears in that sequence at all.

Which layout prints: POS versus the Sale screen

Every business location carries two invoice-layout slots: one for POS, prefilled by default with the Simplified layout, and one for Sale, prefilled with the Standard layout. A sale finished at the POS screen prints whichever layout is in the POS slot; a sale finished on the Sale screen, including one converted there from a quotation or draft, prints whichever layout is in the Sale slot. Both layouts are pre-filled with the business name, branch address, phone, email and logo, with headings and labels in the owner's own language alongside English, and a Gulf business gets a bilingual Tax Invoice heading.

A new business location can create its own pair of layouts, named after the business and the location, or reuse layouts that already exist elsewhere; either way, the location's own Prints by default choice decides whether Standard or Simplified is the one a plain scan or click reaches first. Our guide on invoice layouts and numbering covers designing a layout and building a numbering scheme; this is only about which of the two a given screen reaches.

Recording the payment

Finalising an invoice and recording what was paid against it are two separate steps in Skyline Nexus ERP: the payment is its own record, linked to the invoice rather than built into it, which is what lets one invoice carry several partial payments over time or a single payment settle several invoices at once. Our guide on how to record a sale explains that separation and the ledger postings it produces in full; a quotation, draft or proforma carries no payment at all until it has become a final invoice.

A payment against a final invoice can use any of the payment methods enabled for the location and can be split across more than one of them in a single entry, or spread across several separate payments on different dates until the invoice is fully paid; our guide on the POS screen and cash register lists the payment methods on offer.

Worked example: a quotation that becomes an invoice

A furniture retailer in Lyon raises a quotation for a customer furnishing a new office: one desk at EUR 450.00 and four chairs at EUR 85.00 each, EUR 340.00, before French VAT at 20%. The quotation totals EUR 790.00 net, EUR 158.00 VAT, EUR 948.00 gross, and, being a quotation, it draws no invoice number and touches no stock.

Three days later the customer confirms, and the quotation is opened and set to Convert to invoice. Only at that point does Skyline Nexus ERP assign the location's next invoice number and finalise the document; stock for the desk and four chairs is reduced, and, with Auto-post Sales Transactions on, the sale posts to the ledger exactly as our guide on how to record a sale describes for any other final invoice.

• Quotation: EUR 450.00 desk + EUR 340.00 chairs = EUR 790.00 net; VAT 20% = EUR 158.00; gross EUR 948.00
• Convert to invoice: same figures, now with a real invoice number and a stock and ledger effect
• Check: 450.00 + 340.00 = 790.00; 790.00 x 20% = 158.00; 790.00 + 158.00 = 948.00

Sales returns and credit notes

A return starts from the original invoice, not from a blank screen: open the sale in Sale, All Sales, and choose Sales Return from its action menu. A return is itself a credit note, and one invoice can have several partial returns over time, each recorded separately. Completed returns are listed at Sale, List Sales Returns( Credit Note ); a separate Sales Debit Note screen exists for the debit-note side of a purchase-related adjustment.

With Auto-post Sales Transactions on, a posted return reverses the original sale's revenue, output VAT and cost of goods sold for the returned quantity, leaving the original invoice and its journal untouched. Once an invoice has been reported to or cleared by ZATCA it is frozen and cannot be edited or deleted at all; a credit note or debit note is then the only way to correct it, whatever the reason.

Worked example: a partial return

One of the four chairs from the Lyon order arrives damaged and the customer returns it. At EUR 85.00 net and 20% VAT, the return is EUR 17.00 VAT on EUR 102.00 gross; the chair had cost the business EUR 40.00 to buy, so the posting reverses both the sale and its cost for that one unit only.

• Dr Sales - Furniture 85.00 / Dr VAT output 17.00 / Cr Accounts Receivable 102.00
• Dr Inventory 40.00 / Cr COGS - Furniture 40.00
• Check: 85.00 + 17.00 = 102.00; the desk and the other three chairs stay on the original invoice, untouched

Common mistakes and how to fix them

Most problems in this chain come from treating a pre-invoice document as if it already were one, or from reaching for an edit where a return or a credit note is the correct tool.

• Expecting a quotation number to predict the next invoice number: the two are unrelated counters, and only Convert to invoice draws from the invoice scheme
• Leaving a proforma open after the customer has already paid a deposit against it: convert it to a final invoice first, so the payment has a real invoice to sit against
• Not checking which layout slot, POS or Sale, a new location was given: check Prints by default when the location is created, rather than after the first customer complains
• Trying to edit a ZATCA-frozen invoice instead of issuing a credit note: the edit is refused outright, by design, once the invoice has been reported or cleared
• Raising a full return instead of a partial one: a return can cover just the affected lines, leaving the rest of the invoice, and its posting, untouched

Related reports

Sale, All Sales and Sale, List Sales Returns( Credit Note ) are the two screens to check a document's own history against, and both show the current status of every document, not only finished invoices, so a quotation that was never converted stays fully visible for a follow-up call later. The AR Aging Report and Customer Ledger in the Customer Financial Centre show what a customer still owes across every invoice and return, and the core Profit and Loss and Tax Report show the revenue, VAT and margin effect of both the invoice and any return against it.