New Purchase Direct Invoice

A Purchase Direct Invoice records a supplier bill and receives the goods in one step. It increases stock, books the liability to Accounts Payable, and claims the input tax — without a separate purchase order or goods receipt being raised first.

Where to find it

Go to Purchases > Invoices > New Direct Invoice. Use it when goods and the bill arrive together. Where you received stock earlier, bill it through GRNs To Invoice instead, so the receipt and the invoice match.

A direct invoice creates the purchase order and goods receipt behind the scenes, keeping the document chain intact even though you filled in one form.

Before you start

The supplier must exist.
The items must exist, or you can bill non-stock costs through GL Items.
The accounting period must be open for the invoice date.
You need the SA_SUPPLIERINVOICE permission.

Header field reference

Field	Required	Description
Supplier	Yes	Who is billing you. Selecting them loads currency, payment terms and tax group.
Invoice Date	Yes	The date on the supplier's invoice. Stock, liability and input tax all post on this date, so it must be in an open accounting period.
Due Date	No	When payment falls due, calculated from the supplier's payment terms and editable.
Reference	Yes	Your unique identifier for this document type, from Setup > Transaction Reference.
Supplier's Reference	No	The supplier's own invoice number. Record it — this is what you quote when querying the bill, and what tax authorities match against.
Receive Into	Yes	The warehouse the goods are taken into. Stock increases here.
Deliver To	No	The physical delivery address, where it differs from the warehouse.
Workorder	No	Links the purchase to a production job so raw material cost is tracked against it.
Branch / Department	No	The organisational unit and internal division the cost belongs to.

Current Debit

The live balance with this supplier — positive means you owe them, negative means they owe you. Click the figure to open their full transaction and payment history before booking another bill.

Tax Included (Toggle)

This decides how the system reads the prices you type.

Setting	Effect
Yes	The price entered is the final cost including tax.
No	The system calculates tax and adds it on top of the unit price you entered.

Check this toggle against the supplier's invoice before entering prices. Getting it wrong misstates both the cost of your stock and the input tax you reclaim.

Barcode

Scan a product code and the item is identified and added to the invoice lines automatically.

Line Items (Order Items)

Column	Description
Item Description	The item being purchased.
Batch No / Exp Date	Batch and expiry for tracked items.
Quantity / Received	The quantity billed and received.
Price Before Tax or Price After Tax	The unit cost. The heading follows the Tax Included toggle.
Item Tax Type	The tax treatment for the line.
Line Total	The line value.

GL Items for this Invoice

The GL Items section records non-inventory costs directly on the invoice. Where Order Items tracks physical stock, GL Items handles costs with no quantity and no warehouse — professional fees, electricity, maintenance, freight. It means every cost on a supplier's bill is captured, not just the products.

Field	Description
Account	The ledger account the cost is charged to, from your Chart of Accounts.
Amount	The value of the cost.
Memo	A description of what the charge is for.
Dimension	Optional cost centre or analysis code.

Quick Entry for GL Items

Quick Entries are reusable templates for recurring costs, which saves re-keying the same account splits every month.

Go to Setup > Quick Entries, under the General Ledger section.
Create an entry with Entry Type set to Supplier Invoice/Debit.
That template then appears in the Quick Entry dropdown on the purchase invoice screen.
Select it, enter the amount, and the account splits are filled in for you.

Quick Entries pay for themselves on standard monthly costs — utility bills, rent, professional retainers — where the same accounts and proportions repeat every period.

Total Details

Field	Description
Sub-total	The sum of order items and GL items before adjustments.
Discount(-) / Round Off(+) Amount	A flat adjustment so your total matches the supplier's invoice to the decimal.
Tax	The input tax, broken down by rate.
Amount Total	The final invoice value.

Payment

The Payment dropdown decides the financial status of the invoice the moment you submit it.

Option	Effect
A bank or cash account	The system processes payment immediately on submission, updating the account balance and marking the invoice paid.
Delayed	Treats it as a credit purchase. The liability sits in Accounts Payable until you record a Supplier Payment.

Comments

Notes about the purchase, stored with the invoice.

Attachments

Attach a scan of the supplier's invoice, the delivery note, or approval correspondence. For an audit trail this is the single most useful thing to attach.

Custom Fields

Add your own inputs where the standard form does not capture something you need. Enable under Setup > Preferences > Show Add Custom Field on Forms.

Action Buttons

Button	What it does
Update	Recalculates totals without committing.
Process Invoice	Finalises the invoice, moving stock and posting the ledger entries.

General Ledger

Account	Effect
Inventory Account	Debited — stock value increases as goods enter.
GL Item accounts	Debited — non-stock costs charged to their expense accounts.
Input Tax	Debited — the tax you can reclaim.
Accounts Payable	Credited — records what you now owe the supplier.

Where reverse charge applies, the system posts both the input and output legs of the RCM tax, so the liability and the reclaim are recorded together as the rules require.

Editing or Deleting an Invoice

Editing is subject to permissions and your country's tax rules. In several jurisdictions a posted purchase invoice may not be altered or deleted, only reversed by a debit note. If Edit is unavailable, that is the tax rules being enforced rather than a permission problem.

Handling Payments and Returns (Allocations)

Once the invoice is posted, settle it with a Supplier Payment and match the money to the bill through Allocations. To return goods or dispute a charge, raise a Debit Note and allocate that against the invoice instead.

Related Transactions & Actions

Action	What it does
Payment	Pay the supplier against this invoice.
Debit Note	Return goods or reverse part of the bill.
GL	View the ledger entries the invoice created.
Print / Email	Issue or forward the document.
Void	Cancel the invoice, reversing its stock and financial effect.

Printing and Viewing Purchase Invoices

Open any invoice from the Purchase Invoices List, or use the Purchase Invoice View for the full record including its GRN and ledger tabs.

Purchase Invoice Report

For a consolidated view go to Reports > Purchases, filter by date range and supplier, and export as PDF or Excel.

Purchase Invoices List — find and action invoices
Purchase Invoice View — read one in detail
GRNs To Invoice — bill goods received earlier
Supplier Payment — settle the bill
Direct Debit Note — return goods
New Purchase Expenses — record a non-stock cost instead

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