Ofbiz orders vs invoices

[raja singh]

Can somebody explain why we have orders and invoices. I can see invoices
are merged with accounting, but order is not.

1. Orders have return, but invoices doesn't have any return.
2. Which scenario orders are useful rather than invoice, also vice versa.
3. Based on database table structure orders and invoices don't have any
relationship, is it possible to convert orders into invoice (or) invoice
into orders.
4. When i generate invoice from WebPOS, it creates entry in invoices, not
in orders
5. Why it is not possible to create Quote in invoices section.

Shed some lights on it

[Paul Foxworthy-2]

Hi Raja,

An order is an agreement or contract to deliver a product or service.

An invoice is a bill - a request or requirement to pay.

When an order can be fulfilled straight away and payment is made at the
time of ordering, there doesn't seem much difference.

But the world is more complicated. An order from a customer may trigger
purchase orders to suppliers, or work to be done. The order might be
revised or even cancelled before an invoice is raised. There may be a lead
time between when an order is created and the time we can deliver and ask
the customer for payment. An invoice might not be created until the order
is shipped or delivered.

Invoices are significant for accounting. For accrual accounting, income and
expenditure are based on invoices. Until an order has been fulfilled, you
can't really count it as income.

A return may not need a new invoice, if the seller is obligated to replace
defective goods. When a return means the customer is cancelling part or all
of the order, an invoice can be revised.

It makes no sense to convert an invoice into an order. It's like suggesting
the customer should pay for nothing at all. The order should come first.
The other way around, creating an invoice based on an order, is quite
common. There is a service in OFBiz to do this: createInvoiceForOrder.

In a larger organisation, the staff responsible for invoices may be in the
accounts team and separate from the people who raise purchase orders and
fill sales orders. The permissions may be different for people performing
different roles.

When you are charging a customer for the usual goods or services your
organisation provides, you would create an order first, as soon as you know
you have agreed to deliver. As we have said, you would only create the
invoice when you expect the customer to pay, and that might come later. Any
order that is not cancelled should eventually be associated with an invoice.

You would create an invoice *without* an order under some circumstances.
Say you provide contract labour. Your staff fill in their timesheets every
week or whatever, and you send off the bill. The order would in effect have
been the initial agreement or contract  to provide labour, and there
probably would not be a separate order for each billing period and each
invoice. Your inputs such as electricity would have regular invoices, i.e.
bills to pay. One more scenario: say you are so angry at a supplier who has
made a mistake that you send an invoice for compensation for your time and
trouble - this is different from the normal supply of goods and services,
so no order required.

Sales orders for goods affect your inventory. You need to reserve inventory
to fill the order, even if the goods are not currently in stock. Invoices
don't do any of that. Purchase orders for goods for resale also affect
inventory.

In an invoice, the list of goods and services is there to describe what the
invoice is for, so the customer knows they are being charged fairly. All
the work to obtain and ship goods and to schedule people's work is done
based on an order. Remember, often we can only invoice *after* all that has
been done, so we have a result that a customer is willing to pay for.

Hope that helps

Paul Foxworthy


On Thu, 22 Aug 2019 at 22:21, raja singh <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Can somebody explain why we have orders and invoices. I can see invoices
> are merged with accounting, but order is not.
>
> 1. Orders have return, but invoices doesn't have any return.
> 2. Which scenario orders are useful rather than invoice, also vice versa.
> 3. Based on database table structure orders and invoices don't have any
> relationship, is it possible to convert orders into invoice (or) invoice
> into orders.
> 4. When i generate invoice from WebPOS, it creates entry in invoices, not
> in orders
> 5. Why it is not possible to create Quote in invoices section.
>
> Shed some lights on it
>

--
Coherent Software Australia Pty Ltd
PO Box 2773
Cheltenham Vic 3192
Australia

Phone: [phone]
Web: http://www.coherentsoftware.com.au/
Email: [hidden email]

[Jacques Le Roux]

Hi Raja,

Your message has been moderated.

Please subscribe to the user ML for such questions and then use your email client
See why here http://ofbiz.apache.org/mailing-lists.html

You will get a better support , it's more fair to share with everybody  and people can answer you on the ML rather than directly to you
The wider the audience the better the answers you might get

Also it's more work for moderators who have to accept your messages as long as you have not subscribed.
I'll personally no longer accept them (other moderators still could)

Thanks

Jacques

Le 22/08/2019 à 14:22, raja singh a écrit :

> Can somebody explain why we have orders and invoices. I can see invoices
> are merged with accounting, but order is not.
>
> 1. Orders have return, but invoices doesn't have any return.
> 2. Which scenario orders are useful rather than invoice, also vice versa.
> 3. Based on database table structure orders and invoices don't have any
> relationship, is it possible to convert orders into invoice (or) invoice
> into orders.
> 4. When i generate invoice from WebPOS, it creates entry in invoices, not
> in orders
> 5. Why it is not possible to create Quote in invoices section.
>
> Shed some lights on it
>