|
Topic: Miscellaneous By default the Balance field on Customer and Supplier Documents is set to zero when the Document is in its New State i.e. before it has been saved for the first time. However, it may be that the Customer/Supplier balance is not actually zero at this time. For example you may be changing over to salesorder.com from an existing system, and wish to carry over the correct Customer/Supplier balances.
You will notice that the Balance field is editable in the New State, and of course the temptation is to simply enter the existing balance of the Customer or Supplier, if it is not zero (below). However doing this simply creates a corresponding opening balances entry in the accounts, it does not create any associated Transactional Documents that relate to the balance.
 Editable Balance Field
For example, if a Customer has an outstanding balance of £100. Simply entering 100.00 in the Balance field will in fact ensure the Customer's balance is correct from an accounting perspective. But the £100.00 probably relates to an outstanding Sales Invoice. In this case it would be better to create an appropriate Sales Invoice Document for the Customer, so that when payment is made it can entered against the appropriate Document. Moreover you have a more accurate picture of the transactions that have occurred between you and your Customer.
USEFUL TIP: In general, only enter a non-zero amount in the Balance field if you do not want a record of the associated Transactional Documents (such as Sales Invoices) that resulted in the balance.
If you do require a full record of the transactions, create the appropriate Transactional Documents with the correct Items and amounts. The Customer/Supplier Balance will then be adjusted automatically by the Documents and your records will be correct.
Related tasks and information Working with Transactional Documents
|