Invoices: One VAT Rate, and No Quiet Edits to a Sent One

Month-end, and the accountant asks for the invoice. Not the deal, not the settlement, not a screenshot of a spreadsheet cell — the document with a number on it. On the platform that document lives at /finance/invoices and comes in three types: an invoice generated from a settlement, a standalone services invoice, and a credit note. Administrators, managers and finance users see them; every other role gets the same explanation page as the rest of the finance module.

The list before the page

Search on invoice number, client or settlement, filter by status, scope to a company — all three are applied to the whole invoice list before the current page is chosen, so a match on page four is still a match. The list shows paid and outstanding totals with the overdue count as a red badge beside them, and the footer says which range you are looking at, how many invoices matched, and lets you jump to any page. An invoice with active credit notes shows its net total with the credited amount underneath, so the list never reports a figure a credit note has already reduced.

One VAT rate per document

An invoice carries line items, a subtotal, one VAT rate, the VAT amount that rate produces, and a grand total — in the invoice’s own currency, formatted in the language you use the app in. One rate, set on the document by the person creating it. The platform does not infer a jurisdiction, guess at a type of supply, or decide on your behalf which treatment applies. Your finance team knows the rule for that client; the document records what they applied. Numbers on a tax document should come from somebody who can be asked about them.

How far the status moves

Statuses are draft, sent, viewed, paid and overdue, plus cancelled, and rejected for credit notes. The next-action button moves a draft to sent, and a sent, viewed or overdue invoice to paid. A hard delete exists only for a standalone draft: anything that has been sent is cancelled or corrected instead, and a paid invoice stays put as financial history. When a customer says they cannot find their invoice in the trade-in portal, check whether it is still a draft before you check anything else.

Corrections

An invoice that turns out to be wrong gets a credit note, not an edit. From a sent, viewed, overdue or paid invoice, Create credit note builds a linked credit note that keeps the source invoice, the credited lines, the reason and the audit trail together, and the source invoice goes on showing the credited total, the net after credit and what is still creditable. That flow, the follow-up band and the accounting period lock have their own article: Finance Corrections: Credit the Invoice, Never Edit It.

The printable invoice

/finance/invoices/[id]/report is the printable view: the header block with the VAT number, the bill-to details with the client’s VAT number, invoice number, issue and due dates, payment terms, the linked settlement where there is one, the line items, the subtotal, the VAT line with its rate, the total due, and the payment information with the bank reference. Print it or save it as PDF from the browser. It renders in the language of the person creating it, or of the customer it is meant for.