Record vendor invoices
This unit provides general information about vendor invoices. Vendor invoices are requests for payment for products and services that your organization receives. Vendor invoices can represent a bill for ongoing services, or they can be based on purchase orders for specific items and services.
Vendor invoices
A vendor invoice from a purchase order is an invoice that an organization produces when it receives products or services in accordance with a purchase order that they have with a vendor. The vendor invoice contains a header and one or more lines for items or services. A vendor invoice completes the cycle from purchase order to product receipt to vendor invoice.
Though some vendor invoices connect to a purchase order, some can also contain lines that don't correspond to purchase order lines. You can also create vendor invoices that aren't associated with a purchase order. These vendor invoices might represent ongoing services, such as a utility bill, and you don't need to reference a purchase order when you add those services.
Several ways to enter a vendor invoice are as follows:
Use the vendor invoice register to enter invoices that don't reference a purchase order so that you can accrue the expense. By using the vendor invoice approval journal, you can select those invoices and post them to the vendor balance to reverse the accrual.
Use the vendor invoice journal, which offers a single step where you can enter invoices that don't reference a purchase order.
Use the vendor invoice register together with the vendor invoice pool to enter invoices to accrue the expense. You can open the associated purchase orders later to post the invoice against the expense account.
Use the Open vendor invoices and Pending vendor invoices pages to create vendor invoices from confirmed purchase orders.
Your organization can increase the length of invoice numbers to allow for greater flexibility when adapting invoice numbers to better serve your organizations needs. You can increase the invoice number character limit from 20 characters to 50 characters in vendor invoices and invoice journals. To enable this feature, go to the Feature management workspace and enable Extend the length of invoice number for vendor invoice by selecting Enable now.
The following video describes how to use vendor invoices.
Work with multiple invoices
You can work with multiple invoices at the same time and then post them simultaneously.
If you want to create multiple invoices, you can also use the Pending vendor invoices page. Though the Pending vendor invoices page shows all vendor invoices that the system can't post due to certain issues, you can use the page in cases for bulk import if you have integration with other systems.
Another way to post multiple invoices that are already registered in Finance is to use the Invoice journal. To do so, use the Invoice approval journal page. On the Invoice approval journal page, select Find vouchers, specify the expense account, and then post.
Process the vendor invoice journal including voyage cost
In Landed cost, a voyage involves a distinct movement from an outbound location to the final inbound warehouse location through a series of specific destinations over a set period of time. After you create a voyage, you can add purchase orders and order lines to a single container or multiple containers. Then, the system accurately allocates the associated costs to the item line. Additionally, you can apply orders and order lines to multiple legal entities in a single voyage.
For more information, see Manage voyages.
Adjust posting date for vendor invoices
Occasionally, a vendor invoice might be pending beyond a certain period close date. When the invoices are ready for posting, you can't use the original posting date because the period is closed. In this scenario, you must change all posting dates on the unapproved invoices to the newer open period. To avoid this extra work, you can have the system automatically change the invoice posting date according to your business needs.
To turn on this functionality, go to the Accounts payable parameters page and select the Ledger and sales tax tab. On this tab, you can select how your business wants to adjust the posting date in the Adjust posting date automatically field.
Global transactions
The Vendor transactions list page includes the Global transactions feature. You can use this feature to view all transactions for a vendor across all legal entities. The Vendor transactions list page only shows transactions for the legal entities that you have access to, based on your security settings.
The list page shows all transactions for vendors that have the same party ID as the vendor that you start with. For example, if vendor US-001 in one legal entity has the same party ID as vendor DE-001 in another legal entity, all transactions for both vendor IDs show.
The menus on the Vendor transactions list page vary, depending on the legal entity for the transaction. For example, if a feature is only available for Swiss legal entities, the menu options for that feature appear only when you select a Swiss transaction.
To access global transactions, follow these steps.
Go to Accounts payable > Vendors > All vendors.
Select a vendor. On the Action Pane, on the Vendor tab, in the Transactions group, select Global transactions.
