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Docs Xero Invoices and payments

Invoices and payments

How job lines become Xero invoices, how payments are recorded, and what Smartworks remembers.

Overview

Create Invoice turns the job lines you select into an invoice in Xero. Add Payment To Invoice records a payment against it in Xero. Invoice lists and links open the invoice from Xero. Smartworks remembers which job lines each invoice billed, and keeps a short summary of the invoice for the job budget.

Job linesOutstanding Transactions
Create Invoice
XeroInvoice and payment
Read live, summary kept
SmartworksProcessed Items, budget
Selected job lines become a Xero invoice. Payments go straight to Xero.

Creating an invoice

When you click Create Invoice in the dialog on the Invoicing screen, Smartworks first checks each product on the lines still exists in Xero. It then creates the invoice in Xero with:

On the invoice Comes from
Contact The job’s customer.
Status New invoice status: Draft, Authorised or Submitted.
Due date Invoice due date.
Reference The job’s Order Number, followed by the job name when Reference include Job Name is on.
Lines The selected lines, in the order the screen shows them. Lines for the same product are joined into one when Consolidate Product Lines is on.
Tracking The option chosen for each tracking category, on every line.
Branding theme Xero Branding Theme. See Branding themes.

A line with a negative quantity goes on the invoice as a credit line, with a positive quantity, a negative price and Credit - before its description. Credit lines come last.

Smartworks does not set the account or tax rate on invoice lines. Xero applies its defaults for each item. See Tax rates.

Emailing the invoice

With Email invoice: ticked, Smartworks gets the invoice PDF from Xero once the invoice is created and emails it to the address you entered. Smartworks sends the email itself. Xero does not send it.

What Smartworks keeps

Kept in Smartworks Why
Each invoiced job line, marked processed with the invoice number So the line moves to Processed Items and is not invoiced twice.
A summary of each invoice: status, subtotal and lines So the job budget can count what has been invoiced without asking Xero.

Everything else about the invoice stays in Xero. The Invoice link in Processed Items and the invoice links on the Customers screen open the invoice from Xero. Open invoice in Xero (edit view) opens it in Xero ready to edit.

Reading invoices from Xero

The Invoices list on the Customers screen is read from Xero each time. Current shows draft, submitted and authorised invoices. Historic shows paid, voided and deleted ones.

Adding a payment

Add Payment To Invoice offers the customer’s current invoices from Xero. When you click Add Payment, Smartworks first marks the invoice approved in Xero, then records the payment there:

  • for the Amount you entered;
  • with your Reference;
  • dated today;
  • into the Xero account with the code 090.

Smartworks keeps no record of the payment. It lives only in Xero.

The job budget

A job’s budget counts its invoices from the summary Smartworks keeps. If an invoice changes in Xero, refresh that summary from the job.

Step by step: get the latest invoice data for a job budget
  1. Open the job in Jobs and Quotes.
  2. Click the amount beside Remaining Budget.
  3. Click Get Latest Invoice Data in Job Budget Breakdown.

Smartworks reads each of the job’s invoices from Xero again and updates its summary.

Limitations

  • Payments added from Smartworks always go to the Xero account with code 090, dated today. If your bank account in Xero has a different code, add the payment in Xero instead.
  • If an invoice is voided or deleted in Xero, its lines stay under Processed Items in Smartworks, still linked to that invoice.
  • The job budget keeps counting an invoice that was voided or deleted in Xero, even after Get Latest Invoice Data.
  • The invoice is dated with the day the first selected line was recorded in Smartworks, not the day you create the invoice.
  • The GST and totals under a job’s lines use GST/VAT Rate, while Xero uses each item’s tax rate.
  • If something goes wrong after Xero has created the invoice, the lines can stay under Outstanding Transactions. Check the customer’s invoices in Xero before invoicing them again.

See also