Awaiting Payment sales invoices

Find invoice

Depending on your user role you may only be able view invoices that you created originally and not perform any of these actions described below.
Sales invoices role comparison

Invoice

Invoice with credit note

Approved invoices are available from a couple of places:

• Select the invoice from the Awaiting Payment tab.

• Select an invoice directly off an Awaiting Payment or Paid credit note - invoices will have an Awaiting Payment status if the credit note did not fully credit the invoice i.e. there is still an amount outstanding.

Invoices automatically imported from an add-on will show a link to the original invoice in the other system.

Pay

Apply a payment to the invoice

If your accounts have been locked your role and the type of lock will determine whether you can make any changes to invoices before the lock date.

Make a payment

Editable fields under the Awaiting Payment invoice are available for making a payment.

• You can enter a full or part payment (as many as required). You can also make a full payment on the invoice during bank reconciliation by simply reconciling the full payment received to the Awaiting Payment invoice. If you have received a part payment, you must enter this onto the invoice before you can reconcile it.
• Any payments already recorded on the invoice will be included in the balance due - click on a payment to view its details.

• A fully paid invoice will change its status to 'Paid'.
• If you've entered a PayPal address as part of your invoice branding theme, this will display on the PDF version of the invoice that is received by your customers so that they can link directly through to PayPal. The link does not appear on screen on the Awaiting Payment invoice, only on the PDF. Learn more about receiving and managing PayPal payments in add a PayPal account in Xero and set up an automatic feed.

Credit

Tip: If the customer has outstanding credit you should allocate existing credit before adding a new credit note for them

Credit the invoice

Add a credit note directly to the Awaiting Payment invoice for some or all of the amount outstanding on the invoice using the 'Add Credit Note' option on the Invoice Options button.

This will create a credit note specific to this invoice with the details of the invoice already copied into it. You can approve and apply the credit note to the invoice, or save it as draft, which will break the tie with this invoice. The credit note can be approved later and allocated to this or another invoice as required.

Allocate existing credit

If the customer has existing unallocated (unused) credit in Xero, the total amount of credit available will be shown above the payment panel on the invoice. This option does not display if there are no Awaiting Payment credit notes for this customer - if you have any Draft or Awaiting Approval credit notes that you want to use up, you'll need to approve them first.

You can allocate some or all of the available credit to this invoice.

Edit

Edit any field of an Awaiting Payment invoice

You can edit any field of a customer invoice found on the Awaiting Payment tab. (Editing of Paid invoices is more limited.)

1. Click on the Contact name in the 'From' column of the Awaiting Payment tab. At first you will have a read-only view.
2. Select 'Edit' from the 'Invoice Options' drop-down at the top right-hand side of the invoice screen.
3. All the fields will then be editable, as they are when editing a Draft invoice.
4. Click 'Update' to save any changes you have made.

• Editing and deleting invoices and credit notes
• Specific guidance on editing Awaiting Payment invoices

If the invoice is a repeating invoice generated from a schedule, you can modify these settings.

Select

Email/Send or Print

• Click the Email button to email an invoice to one or more recipients.
  Email an invoice
  
• If you'ved entered a Xero network key received from another Xero organisation, the button will display as Send instead - use it to either send the invoice from Xero to Xero or email it.
• Click on the Print PDF button to open the invoice as a PDF if you'd like to use this as a preview of what you're emailing, or to print the invoice to post to your customer.
  Print a customer invoice
  
• You can print more than one Awaiting Payment invoice at once from the Awaiting Payment tab.
• For any of these options you can choose to mark the invoice as sent.

• If the invoice has already been sent, this will display on the invoice and you can remove this as necessary by clicking the 'Unmark as sent' link.

Invoice Options

Click the Invoice Options button for a list of other actions you can perform on an Awaiting Payment invoice.

The options may vary from invoice to invoice.

Send via Xero Network (only if set up)

An extra option 'Send via Xero Network' will display in the Invoice Options list (as well as the Send button already displayed on the invoice) only if you have set entered this customer's network key.

You can't send invoices from Xero to Xero if the invoice has payments or credit notes attached to it.

Repeat

All invoices that were not automatically generated as a repeating invoice (or have had their repeating schedule deleted) can be used as a template for a new repeating invoice.

Void

Invoices that have been approved cannot be deleted but can be voided (as long as no payments have been made.) If you void an invoice with a credit note attached to it, the credit amount will be reversed on the original credit note - this may return the credit note from a Paid to an Awaiting Payment status if the entire amount of the credit note was applied to the invoice just voided. For best accounting practice you should credit an invoice rather than voiding it. You should only void an invoice where that invoice has not been sent or issued. For how to credit invoices you should speak to your financial adviser. For more information on Credit Notes in Xero please see our Credit Notes help.

Copy

A copy of an invoice in any status will be created.

Edit

As above, you may edit the invoice.

Add Credit Note

As long as there is a balance outstanding on the invoice you can add one or more credit notes for the invoice. You can only add credit notes from invoices that are Awaiting Payment.

Payments & credit notes

Any payments or credit notes already applied to the invoice will be included in the balance due - click on a payment or credit note to view its details.

History & Notes

Your user role will determine whether you can add an expected payment date. If you can't, you can see any note or date entered onto your invoices by another user.
Sales invoices role comparison

Show History

View the history for this invoice (History & Notes)

Add a Note or Expected Payment date to the invoice

You can add a note and/or expected payment date to Awaiting Payment sales invoices, typically if your customer is not going to pay you on time, to help you maintain a record of conversations or arrangements and better manage your outstanding debtors.

You can review your entire list of outstanding debtors (customers) from the Awaiting Payment tab and add notes and expected payment dates as your review the list, or you can do it on each individual invoice here in the History & Notes section.

• Click on the 'Add Note/Expected Payment Date' link to unravel the same notes panel as if you were adding a note/expected payment date from the Awaiting Payment tab list of invoices.
• Enter a note or an expected payment date or both and save. This will be recorded in the history for this invoice.
• The same Save options for your note or expected payment date are the same as those available if you enter either of these from the Awaiting Payment tab:
  • Save or Save & Close - save your note or date.
  • Save & Email Invoice - save your note or date and complete details for emailing the invoice. If you've already sent the invoice to your customer you shouldn't send it again from Xero to Xero otherwise they'll end up with a second copy in Xero that they'll have to delete. Use the Save & Email option to send them just the PDF invoice.
  • Save & Print Invoice - save your note or date, then open the invoice as a PDF to save or print.
    Print a customer invoice
  • Save & Send Statement - save your note or date and open the statement for this customer for the current month.
    View, email or print a customer statement
• The note and/or expected payment date you've added does not get printed on the PDF invoice or statement for your customer, it just retained here in the History & Notes for the invoice.
• Once your note and/or expected payment date is saved, it will also display for the invoice on the Awaiting Payment tab as the last note if you click on the '+' in the Expected Date column for this invoice.