Setting up invoicing

You must choose whether the selling prices of your stock items are inclusive or exclusive of VAT. This is set to exclude VAT by default. If you want to use VAT inclusive pricing, you must choose this in Invoicing Settings, before entering any invoice and sales orders.

Open: Invoicing > Invoicing Utilities > System Set up > Invoicing Settings | Processing.

See Processing options (SOP settings / Invoice and order settings).

Choose the starting numbers for invoice and credit notes. These can only be numbers, you can't use alpha-numeric references. You set this in the Invoicing Settings.

Numbers are assigned to invoices and credit notes created in Invoicing, when the invoice or credit note is saved.

Invoice numbers are used by both Invoicing and Sales Order Processing (SOP), so your invoice numbers are assigned to each one in order. For example, if you create invoice from the Invoicing module, this has invoice no 1. If you then create an invoice from a sales order, this has an invoice number of 2.

Open: Invoicing > Invoicing Utilities > System Set up > Invoicing Settings | Document numbering.

See Document numbering (SOP settings / Invoice and order settings).

Already using SOP?

If you're already using SOP, your invoice and credit notes numbers will already be in use and can't be changed. New invoices and credit notes will use the next available number.

Invoice and order items are just records of things you want to sell, but don't want to create a stock record for. You only need to set up invoice and order items if you need to use them.

You would generally use them if you're not using Stock Control. You can use them to keep a record of free text lines you regularly add to invoices and sales orders. These items can't be added to purchase orders.

Each item has a code, price, notional cost, default VAT rate and default nominal code. They are added to invoices and sales orders as stock items.

To use invoice and order items:

1. Make sure you choose to use both standard and free text lines in the Invoicing Settings.

2. Create your invoice and orders items:

   Open: Invoicing > Invoicing Maintenance > Invoice Items.

See Create invoice and order items.

You can use free text lines to add one-off lines with a value. These can be used for things you don't want to keep track off or don't want to create stock record for. Invoices and sales orders are set to only allow stock items, by default.

If you want to use free text lines, you set this in the Invoicing Settings. A free text line can be added to an invoice, by selecting Free text as the Line type.

If you only want to use free text lines on invoices, then you can also turn off the use of stock items at the same time.

Open: Invoicing > Invoicing Utilities > System Set up > Invoicing Settings | Invoice and Order Entry.

See Invoice and order entry (SOP settings / Invoice and order settings).

Stock item lines will post to the nominal account set on the customer account by default. You can change this in the Invoicing Settings.

You can choose to:

• Change this to the post the nominal account set on the stock record or invoice item, by default.

• You can also choose to combine the nominal account from stock or invoice item with the cost centre and department set on the customer account.

Open: Invoicing > Invoicing Utilities > System Set up > Invoicing Settings | Default Accounts.

See Default accounts (SOP settings / Invoice and order settings).

The nominal account is displayed when you enter invoices and credit notes.

You can choose to:

• Allow users to change the nominal account when entering item lines on invoices and credit notes, using Allow amendment of - Nominal codes on the Invoicing Settings Invoice and Order Entry tab.

Open: Invoicing > Invoicing Utilities > System Set up > Invoicing Settings | Invoice and Order Entry.

See Invoice and order entry (SOP settings / Invoice and order settings).

If you want to, you can record the receipt of a payment at the same time as entering an order or invoice. To do this:

• Turn on Allow payments to be recorded... in Invoicing Settings | Invoice and Order Entry. Turning this on will add a Payment with Invoice tab to the invoice.
• If you want to print text other than Paid in Full on these invoices, enter your own text in Invoicing Settings | Printing.
• Set up Payment Methods. This sets the bank account the payment is taken from and allows you group payments by type, such cash, or debit card. You can us this to reconcile payments to your sales devices or cash registers.
• If you want to take card payments directly in Sage 200 for these payments using Opayo (formerly Sage Pay), turn this on in Invoicing Settings and set up an Opayo account.

If you never take payments with orders, then you don't need to turn this on.

See Set up payments with invoices and sales orders.

If you process invoice and credit notes in a foreign currency, you can choose which text is printed on the invoice for EU zero rated sales.

Unlike sale orders, foreign currency invoices entered via the Invoicing module always use the exchange rate set in Sage 200 when the invoice is printed.

You can set up a generic account to record cash sales. Using a generic account means you don't have to set up individual customer accounts for one-off sales. This account can't be used as a regular account so doesn't show on the drop-down list when entering invoices.

You can have only one cash account and this is used for both Invoicing and SOP.

To do this:

1. Create a customer account for your cash sales.
2. Specify that this is the Cash Orders account in Invoicing Settings | Default Accounts.

Open: Invoicing > Invoicing Utilities > System Set up > Invoicing Settings | Default Accounts.

See Default accounts (SOP settings / Invoice and order settings).

You can set up Sage 200 so that you can control which users can see or edit certain parts of your invoices and orders. By default, these permissions are not set for any user.

You don't have to set any of these permissions. If they're not set, the users can't see profit and discounts, override prices, etc. Any permissions you do set apply to both invoice and sales orders.

You can choose to allow users to:

• See the amount of profit made for each invoice and invoice line. This allows the user to access the Profit button on the Order Details tab and the Profit button to each line.

• View details of all discounts that have been used to make up the total for an invoice line.

  This could be a combination of a quantity discount, line discount and customer discount. This adds a View Discounts button to the invoice.

• Create new invoices for customers who have exceeded their credit limit. If this isn't selected, then a new invoice is put on hold.

• Change the selling price or discount on a line.
• Change the cost price of a stock or invoice item.

When you change the cost price of an item on invoice line, this just affects the profitability of the invoice but not the cost price stored on the stock item. The stock history and reports use the cost price set on the stock item for their calculations.

• Using stock? Set a default warehouse for a user. When this user enters an invoice, they can only choose stock items from the warehouse by default, although they can change this. This is useful if a user needs to select from a specific warehouse or branch first.

Open: Invoicing > Invoicing Utilities > System Set Up > User Permissions.

See Invoice and order user permissions.

You can add charges to invoices for such things such as carriage and insurance. If these are just a one-off cost you can add them to invoices 'on the fly'. To do this, just add Charge as the Line Type when entering invoices and credit notes.

If you have charges that you use regularly, you can set them up as an additional charge record, so that it's quicker to enter them and it'll make sure charges are applied consistently. These additional charge records are used for invoices and sales orders.

Open: Invoicing > Invoicing Maintenance > Additional Charges.

See Additional charges for invoices and sales orders.

Invoices and credit notes are printed using a layout file. This specifies what information is shown on the invoice, where it's located on the page and how it's displayed, such as font size and colour. If you need to, you can use multiple layout files, and you can customise them to suit your business.

You may want to use different layouts for different customers, or set up a layout for printed documents and another for sending documents by email.

If you're happy to use the default layout without any changes, you don't need to anything.

To use a different layout, you must:

• Create the layout you want to use, using Report Designer. We recommend that you make changes to the default layout.
• Set the new layout as the default for all customers, or set the layout you want to use on each customer account.

See Manage invoice and credit note layouts.

Analysis codes are custom fields that you can associate with your invoices. You can use them to filter or group invoices on reports and workspaces. For example, you could use analysis codes to specify which sales person has sold the goods, or to specify which branch or region placed the sales. You use the same analysis codes for Invoicing and SOP.

Each analysis code has two parts. A Code for the type of information, and a set of Values that can choose for each invoice. For example, a Sales person analysis code could have a set of values; John, Tim and Ben. You choose a Value for each relevant analysis code. If an analysis code is not to be used, leave the value blank.

Analysis codes can be added to:

• A whole sales document (order, return, quotation, or pro forma) or invoice, on the Analysis Codes tab.

  Note - information

  Analysis codes are displayed on the Analysis Codes tab for Sage 200 Professional versions from 2023 R1 onwards, but are displayed on the Delivery & Invoicing tab for Sage 200 Professional versions up to 2022 R2.

• Individual item lines, by editing the item and selecting the Analysis Codes button.

To set up analysis codes:

1. Create your analysis codes (Accounting System Manager > Settings > Maintain Analysis Codes).
2. Choose the analysis codes to use for Invoicing and Sales Orders (Invoicing > Invoicing Maintenance > Maintain Analysis Codes).
3. Choose whether to allow analysis codes to be changed when entering invoices and credit notes (Invoicing > Invoicing Utilities > System Set up > Invoicing Settings | Invoice and Order Entry).

See Use analysis codes with sales orders and invoices.

Using stock? Use the Price Book module to set selling prices and discounts for your customers.

Once you have set up all your stock items and customer accounts, you'll need to decide on the price you want to charge for each item. You do this by settings up Price bands. Each price band is essentially a price list. You can set up as many price bands as you need, and you just need to decide which customers receive which prices. Once set up, this determines the price that's used when a stock item is added to a sales order or invoice.

You also use the Price Book module to set discounts for stock items and choose which discount individual customers receive.

See Set up the Price Book.