To raise a sales invoice you need to first create a sales order, then post it to accounts.

Sales orders are created by default at status Quote. There are a number of order statuses set up in Pearl as default, and you can add more if required. A typical sales flow for a mail order company would be as follows:

Quote -> Pending action -> Please Ship -> Packed -> Closed

Sales Invoice numbers are created automatically when a sales order is posted to accounts. The invoice can be raised at any point in the order flow. Sales Invoices are given a invoice number: SI-XXXX, and credit notes are given a credit number: SC-XXXX.

To create a new sales order:

1. First find the customer using the contacts quick search box
2. Once the chosen customer is displayed on the CRM screen, hover over the menu link and click new order, or click the shopping cart icon.
   
3. Add items to the quote by clicking the Add items link.
   
4. You can edit the prices and descriptions at any point.
5. Make sure the tax codes and nominal codes are correct.
6. Enter any shipping value if required, and save.
7. Choose a payment method
8. Enter any amount already paid for this order into the "Paid" box
   
9. You can post the individual order to accounts by clicking the Post to accounts button whilst in the order screen, or post multiple orders at once by using the Sales->Reconcile Department link from the main menu.

Creating an invoice that has been paid for in full
If you choose any other payment (and an "amount paid" has been set), then Pearl will raise the invoices and then clear the invoice from the account set up for that particular payment method. For example, if you choose Paypal as the payment method, then when the order is posted to accounts Pearl will automatically enter a sales invoice onto the customer account, then enter a payment received from the customer against the invoice, into the PayPal sales account.

Creating an invoice that has been part paid for
Set the payment method appropriately, and set the part payment amount into the "paid" box, then post to accounts. Pearl will raise the invoice, then allocate a part payment against the invoice leaving the rest on the customer's account for later payment.

If the order has a billing email address set, the invoice will automatically be sent to the customer when the order is posted to accounts. At any time you can open the order and click the print/email invoice link. You can also view a list of outstanding invoices by Accounts->Customers->Invoice list.

Please read the Sales training pack for more information.

Create a credit note in the same way as you would create a sale, but make sure that the product quantity is set to negative. If you do not want to add products to the credit note, just use the Misc product. When you post the credit note to accounts, Pearl will detect that the total is less than zero and will generate a SC- number, and allocate the credit to the customer account. If you wish to clear this credit note against an invoice, you will need to open the allocate payment made screen, click "pay in full" by both entries and save.

Pearl will allow you to choose whether you send quotes and invoices to your customers embedded as HTML in an email, or attached as a PDF file. PDF invoicing is enabled at Setup->Company Defaults screen. Note that you must have a clean and professionally designed set of templates to work with the PDF creation system since complex HTML with certain fonts can give errors when generating a PDF.

Purchase Orders, and Quotes can also be generated as PDFs, which are also attached to the order. Each time you send a quote to the customer, a PDF copy will be saved as an attachment on the order (stored for your reference in the Attachments tab within an order).

Please see the section for more detailed info on PDF document templates.