Invoicing Your Customers Using Sage 50 Accounts

With Sage 50, you have the option to invoice your customers directly from your accounting software. When you generate a new invoice, you can email it directly to your customer using the contact information stored for the customer in Sage 50. The invoice entry will be automatically posted to the General Ledger account. Apart from email, you can print the invoice if you want a physical copy. An invoice in Sage 50 can have 500 lines of items, which is more than sufficient. In Sage 50, there are two types of invoices, one for products and the other for services.

In this post, you’ll learn about invoicing your customers with Sage 50.

Create a Product Invoice

The Sales/Invoicing window can be used to create a new product or service invoice. Any transactions recorded in this manner are recorded in the general ledger. You can store a large amount of information related to an invoice, information including shipping address, sales tax ID, freight charges, etc.

Steps to create a product invoice:

1. From the main menu, choose Tasks.
2. Click on Sales/Invoicing.
3. Choose the Product template from the drop-down menu.
4. Choose the Customer ID. Upon selecting a customer, Sage 50 enters all of his or her stored information on the invoice.
5. Choose Apply to Sales Order if the invoice applies to a sales order.
6. Don’t input anything into the invoice #, as Sage 50 will automatically provide the next available number to the invoice.
7. Select the date for the invoice.
8. Select the due date for the invoice.
9. Enter the PO # to help your customer easily identify the items they’re purchasing. If the invoice isn’t related to a purchase order, then leave this field blank.
10. Choose the shipping method with the Ship Via option. Users have the option to choose a date for shipping.
11. Choose Terms of invoice. These terms define the amount of discount applied on an invoice.
12. Input the following information for each product in separate lines:
    1. Item name
    2. Item’s ID
    3. Description 
    4. Unit price
    5. Item’s quantity
    6. Sales tax status
    7. Job information (to choose if an invoice is part of a job.)
13. Choose the correct Account Receivable account to link to the transaction.
14. Input the Withholding Retainage percentage.
15. Choose the Sales Tax ID for this invoice.
16. Input any shipping charges in the Freight field.
17. Choose the amount paid at the sale link if the payment was already received for the product.
18. Click on Save.

You can also choose the Print option before saving the invoice if you want a physical copy of the invoice. You can use the same method to create an invoice for a service in Sage 50.

Information about customized sales/invoicing templates

Sage 50 enables you to create custom templates for invoicing. If the default theme of the invoice doesn’t fit your brand image, then you can create a new custom template to send to the customers. 

You can choose the Customize invoice layout option from the Layout Toolbar.

Copying, recurring, and memorizing transactions in Sage 50

When you need to create multiple invoices on the basis of a single invoice, then you can use these three options to effectively invoice your customers through Sage 50.

Steps to copy an invoice in Sage 50:

1. Go to Tasks, then choose Sales/Invoicing.
2. From the List option, choose the sales invoice that you want to copy.
3. Click on the copy button in the toolbar.
4. When the new invoice appears on the screen, make the necessary changes to the information.
5. Click on Save.

If you have common transactions that you need to create an invoice for regularly, then you can rely on memorized transactions, which store information such as purchase orders, customer quotes, payments, etc. When you use a memorized transaction, all the information is entered automatically. You can then make the changes required before saving the invoice.

Steps to use memorized transactions in Sage 50:

1. Go to the Maintain menu.
2. Choose Memorized Transactions.
3. Select the type of transaction.
4. Input the Transaction ID, and a description that offers information about the transaction.
5. Input rest of the additional information.
6. Click on Save.
7. When using the memorized transactions, go to Maintain, then Memorized Transaction.
8. Choose the memorized transaction that you want to use.
9. Make the necessary changes and save the new invoice created from the memorized transaction.

Lastly, you can create a recurring transaction entry. These transactions repeat after specific periods of time. Even after creating a recurring transaction, you can change its frequency and data on a later date. You can even delete the recurring transaction if there’s no need for it anymore.

Steps to create a recurring transaction in Sage 50:

1. Create a new transaction or open an existing one.
2. Click on the Copy option.
3. Choose to Create Recurring.
4. Input information about the frequency of the recurring invoice.
5. Click on Ok.

Apply payment to an invoice in Sage 50

If you didn’t receive the payment before or at the time of creating the invoice, then you can record the payment after sending the invoice to the customer. When you receive the money for the transaction, you can apply the received amount to the invoice.

Steps to apply a customer payment to an invoice in Sage 50:

1. Go to the Tasks menu, then choose Receive Money.
2. Input the Deposit Ticket ID, which informs about the source from which the payment was received. (This is optional, but it can be facilitated when you reconcile your accounts in Sage 50.)
3. Choose the Customer ID.
4. Go to the Apply to Invoices tab.
5. Input check number for reference.
6. Choose the method of payment: check or cash. 
7. Choose the Cash Account list, and then choose the Bank Account in which the amount is deposited.
8. Input the amount of money received from the customer in the Receipt Amount field. 
9. Input rest of the additional information about the invoice, and click on Save.

You can choose to apply partial payments to an invoice. This way, the entire invoice won’t be considered paid, only a certain amount of it.

Edit or delete an invoice in Sage 50

Even after creating and saving an invoice in Sage 50, you can edit the information that you entered in the invoice. You can also delete or void the invoice. While voiding the invoice nullifies its value0,M G;SD .87 with a counter transaction, deleting an invoice removes it completely from your company file, so you have no information about it in the future.

Steps to edit or delete an invoice in Sage 50:

1. Go to Tasks, and choose Receive Money.
2. Click on the List option.
3. Choose the receipt or invoice that you want to delete, then select Ok.
4. Choose the Delete option.
5. Go to Tasks, and choose Sales/Invoicing.
6. Click on the List option.
7. Choose the invoice that you want to edit, and click on Ok.
8. Make the necessary changes, then click on Save.

When you need to maintain an audit trail, it is better to void an invoice, instead of deleting it. When you edit and save an invoice, the changes you make will reflect across all of the related general ledger accounts. The same happens upon deleting.

Voiding a transaction in Sage 50

Voiding is a better option for maintaining an audit trail. While deleting the transaction removes it from your company file, voiding removes the value of the transaction, but still keeps the original invoice for reference.

Steps to void an invoice in Sage 50:

1. Go to the Tasks option, and choose Sales/Invoicing.
2. From the List option, choose the invoice that you want to void.
3. From the delete option in the toolbar, choose Void.
4. In the Void Existing Invoice window, input the void date or set it as default.
5. Click on Ok.

Conclusion

In this post, I’ve provided the steps to invoice your customers from Sage 50. I’ve also offered the steps to create memorized and recurring transactions so that you can efficiently invoice your customers and record payments that you receive against that invoice. Let me know if you’ve any other questions about invoicing customers in Sage 50.

FAQ