About invoices

An invoice is a request for money from one of your customers. You write it, send it, and Qcom keeps track of what has been paid and what is still owed.

An invoice is not a payment

Keep those two apart and the rest of this follows:

• The invoice says what a customer owes you, and for what. It has a number, a due date and a balance.
• A payment says what actually arrived. One invoice can take several payments, which is why an invoice can sit at partly paid for a while.

An invoice is overdue when its due date has passed and money is still owed. That isn't a status of its own — a partly paid invoice can be overdue too.

The pieces

• What you're charging for. Lines you write yourself, or prices pulled from your Catalog.
• Who has to agree. Over the limit you set — or when you priced a line by hand — an invoice waits for a second pair of eyes before it can go out.
• How the customer pays. Every issued invoice gives the customer a page of their own with a Pay button and the PDF.
• Chasing. Reminders don't run on their own until you turn the automation on.

Where invoices come from

Start one from New invoice on the Invoices page, or use Create invoice where the customer already is — on a contact, on one of their renewals, on a lead, on an approved application, or from a conversation in your inbox. Each one carries its details across.

A proforma invoice is different: it is a priced proposal under Invoices → Quotes, not an amount the customer owes. When the customer accepts it, Qcom creates and issues the payable invoice from the exact revision they saw.

Where to see what you're owed

The Invoices page lists everything, and filters down to what's overdue. A customer's own page shows their outstanding total, and a lead shows what was estimated, what you invoiced, what arrived and what's still owed, side by side.

At the top of the Invoices page there's a card for each currency you invoice in:

• still owed — everything not yet paid on invoices that are still open
• Invoiced — the full value of the invoices you've sent
• Collected on these — money received against those same invoices
• Refunded — money sent back on those same invoices, shown only when there is any

Collected on these isn't the same as money that arrived this month. It's what has been paid on the invoices in view, whenever the payment came in. An invoice you sent in August and the customer paid in September counts as collected the moment they pay, and stays with August because that's when you asked for it.

Estimated values on leads aren't shown here. An estimate is what you expect, an invoice is what you've asked for, and a payment is what arrived — adding any of them together gives you a number that means nothing.

Amounts are never added across currencies. If you invoice in cedis and dollars, you get a total for each, and no combined figure — putting them together needs an exchange rate nobody has given us.

How payments are allocated

Payment allocation decides how a payment is split between the lines on its invoice. An explicit split takes priority over the automatic choice:

• Explicit allocation only is the default. Without a split, the payment reduces the invoice balance but its line allocation still needs review.
• Proportional to outstanding balances splits the payment by how much remains unpaid on each line.
• Oldest obligation first pays the earliest amount due first. Lines on the same invoice share its due date.

Changing this choice affects new payments. Recorded splits stay unchanged. Older payments with missing allocation details need review; choosing an automatic rule doesn't fill in their history.

Money above the invoice balance stays as customer credit rather than being spread across other accounts. A refund follows the original payment split unless an explicit refund split is supplied, and it doesn't reopen the invoice debt.

Invoice steps in Journeys

Journey checks look for usable delivery connections and approved invoice messages. They do not choose a customer’s Inbox or prove that an invoice has been delivered.

An open WhatsApp messaging window can send the invoice without a template. Outside it, the customer’s number and language need an eligible approved message, or an eligible Email or SMS route. Review any conditions before relying on automatic delivery. Connections and messaging eligibility can change after setup; review the delivery result to confirm what happened.

Who can do what

Invoices are on the Growth plan and above. Workspace owners and admins can do everything; anyone else needs the matching permission to create, issue, approve, void or send. Approving is deliberately kept separate — whoever wrote an invoice can never be the one who approves it.

Related

• Write and send an invoice
• Prepare and send a proforma invoice
• What each invoice status means
• How your customer pays an invoice
• Chase an unpaid invoice
• Approve an invoice before it goes out

Account details on invoice lines

Choose the customer, then use Choose account on each invoice line that belongs to an account. Select the account by its reference or opening date. For a line without an account, leave No account assigned. Your billing integration can also supply the exact account. The account must belong to that customer and match the line's item. Two accounts for the same item remain separate.

The account is recorded when the invoice is issued. Changing a customer's current accounts does not move older charges between them. If an older invoice has no reliable account details, its account statement needs review; the item name alone is not enough to assign those charges.

Changing the invoice customer clears account choices so you can choose again. Ended accounts remain available when billing earlier service. If an account list cannot load, use Try again; an unavailable list does not mean the customer has no accounts. Use Load more accounts to see the next page.

Choosing a customer also uses their residential address for the default invoice details. A delivery address is not used. Existing explicit billing details remain unchanged unless you change the customer or edit those details.

Applying existing customer credit

You can apply money paid above an earlier invoice's balance to an open invoice for the same customer and currency. You need invoice adjustment access. No new payment is taken: the existing credit reduces the selected invoice's balance.

Open the invoice that should receive the money and choose Customer credit. Choose the original invoice, an available payment credit, and the invoice line and account that should receive it. Enter the amount and a reason, review the summary, then choose Apply credit. Each assignment covers one line; repeat for another line if needed. These controls are available on the website and in the mobile invoice details.

Existing assignments appear below the form. Choose Reverse assignment and give a reason to return that amount to available customer credit. This restores the amount owed on the receiving invoice; it does not send a refund.

If the response is interrupted, Retry assignment repeats the same request. Use Refresh invoice to read the saved result before starting another assignment. A read failure shows Try again, not an empty credit balance.

The customer-wide statement shows credit moving out of the original invoice and into the selected invoice. Its overall balance does not change just because credit moves. The selected account's statement shows the amount applied to that account.

An assignment can be reversed with a reason when the invoice still matches the recorded amounts. Later balance changes need review first. The original assignment and reversal are both retained; issued documents are not rewritten.

Reverse assigned credit before requesting a refund of its original payment. Payments with refunds pending or requiring reconciliation are not available for new credit assignments. Missing historical allocations also need review; current balances are not used to guess their account.

Credit assignment has no separate on/off setting. Your invoice adjustment access controls whether you can make changes. A fully paid invoice cannot receive more credit, and a payment with no unassigned balance has no available credit to use. When a line needs review, check its recorded account and earlier allocations; choosing another customer's account is not a way to clear the review.

For other changes to what is owed, see Invoice statuses.

Correcting which account a payment covers

An allocation correction moves part of a recorded payment between two lines on the same invoice. It changes which account the payment covers, without changing what the customer paid or the invoice's overall balance. Account statements show the correction on the date it was recorded. Previously issued documents stay as they were.

On the website or mobile app, open the invoice and choose Payment allocations. Choose the payment to correct, the line and account to move it from, and the line and account to move it to. Enter an amount and a reason, review the summary, then choose Apply correction. You need invoice adjustment access, and both lines must already have verified accounts belonging to that customer.

Previous corrections appear below the form. Choose Reverse correction, give a reason and confirm to restore the original shares. Reversed corrections remain visible in the history.

If a response is interrupted, Retry correction repeats the same request, including its original reason and amount. Refresh invoice reads what was saved before you start again. A failed read offers Try again; it does not mean the invoice has no payments. Billing integrations use the same rules and must preserve the request identity and details when retrying.

Corrections retain the original payment shares. Reversing a correction restores those exact shares and keeps both audit entries. A later change may prevent the reversal if it would put too much payment against a line; review the intervening assignments first. Reverse active corrections before refunding the payment.

This does not move payments between invoices, create new charges, spend excess customer credit or fill missing historical allocations. Payments with pending or settled refund history need review before correction. If Qcom cannot verify the original payment or its line amounts, review the billing records rather than using today's balance to guess. For unused overpayments, use Customer credit.