Credit sales

A credit sale is an ordinary sale where the customer takes the goods without paying the whole amount. The remainder is money they owe you — and SaleSprint now raises an invoice for it automatically.

Where

Sale Transactions → Add Credit Sale

Plan

Growth and above

Permission

Sales → Sale

What’s new

• Every credit sale gets an invoice. It is raised the moment the sale completes, for the unpaid balance, and shows the sale’s own items.
• The customer is sent that invoice, with a button to pay online when your workspace can take online payments.
• One balance, wherever the money comes in. A payment at the till, a payment recorded in finance and a payment made online all reduce the same invoice and the same sale.
• Credit limits are enforced. See credit limits.

How to sell on credit

1. Go to Sale Transactions → Add Credit Sale.
2. Choose the Customer. This is required — there is no walk-in option, because somebody has to owe the money.
3. Add the items exactly as you would at the till.
4. Take whatever part payment the customer is making now, or none at all.
5. Click Complete.

The goods go out and the unpaid remainder becomes the customer’s balance.

You need a specific permission for this

Completing a sale with money still owed requires the Sales → Sale → Credit permission, separate from ordinary selling. Without it the sale is refused.

The sale can be refused for being over the credit limit

If the customer has a credit limit and this sale would take them past it, the sale is refused with the figures — unless you hold the override permission. See credit limits.

What happens when you complete the sale

• The goods leave your shelf immediately, and the full amount is recognised as income immediately, not when they pay.
• An invoice is raised for the balance, in the same step. It gets the next customer invoice number, is already Sent (there is no separate posting step and no second approval), and lists the sale’s items.
• The due date comes from the Payment Terms (days) on the customer’s record, counted from the sale date. With no terms set, it is due on the day of the sale.
• The customer is emailed an Invoice issued message asking for what is still owed — so a customer who paid part at the till is asked only for the rest. It needs the customer to have an email address and Email the customer about sales to be on.
• The debt now shows as an invoice on the customer’s ledger, in AR Aging, on your dashboards, and — if you have switched them on — in payment reminders and overdue notices.

A sale paid in full raises no invoice: nothing is owed.

You do not need the invoice screens to sell on credit

The invoice is raised for you on any plan that can sell on credit. Opening it under Financials → Customer Finances → Customer Invoices needs the Professional plan and its own permission; collecting with Add payment on the sale does not.

Other sales that end up on credit

Sale	When its invoice is raised
Pickup later	At release, for whatever is still unpaid when the customer collects. Nothing is invoiced when the sale is first taken.
Backorder where everything turned out to be in stock	When the sale completes, like any credit sale.
Backorder where part of the order is genuinely waiting for stock	No invoice yet. These are still tracked on the sale alone.

How to collect the money later

All of these reduce the same balance. Use whichever fits.

At the till

1. Go to Sale Transactions → Credit Sales. The list shows Paid and Balance for each one.
2. Find the sale and open its row menu.
3. Click Add payment.
4. Enter the Amount, the Method and any Reference, then save.

The sale’s balance and the invoice’s balance both update. Repeat for each instalment.

In finance

Record a payment under Financials → Customer Finances → Customer Payments and allocate it to the sale’s invoice, exactly as for any other invoice. The sale’s Paid and Balance follow. See customer money.

Online

The customer pays from the link in their invoice email, a reminder or a statement. The invoice and the sale are both updated when the payment is confirmed. See getting paid online.

Changing or cancelling

The invoice belongs to the sale. On the invoice itself you can change the dates, the notes and the terms — nothing else. Its items, amount and customer come from the sale, and it cannot be cancelled or deleted from the invoice screen.

To cancel it, cancel the sale. That cancels the invoice and removes the debt from the customer’s account.

A sale whose invoice has payments cannot be cancelled

If any payment has been applied to the invoice, cancelling the sale is refused — “invoice … has payments applied; refund or credit them before cancelling the sale”.

That is deliberate: cancelling would leave a customer’s money attached to a debt that no longer exists. Deal with the money first, then cancel.

Credit sales made before invoices existed

Open credit sales from before this change still have their balance, and Add payment still works on them. They get an invoice — and so start appearing in reminders and getting pay links — once your administrator runs a one-off conversion. Nothing is emailed to customers for those older debts. Ask whoever looks after your SaleSprint installation.

Things worth knowing

• “Credit sale” is not a status. It is simply a completed sale with a balance outstanding. There is no credit-approval step unless you configure approvals.
• Sale → Require Customer For Credit Sale decides whether a customer must be named before a sale with a balance can complete. It is on by default, and worth leaving on.
• Do not raise a second invoice by hand for a credit sale. SaleSprint refuses one for a sale that already has an invoice, because it would count the debt twice.

Related

• Credit limits
• Invoicing a customer — for services
• Getting paid online
• Customer money
• Selling at the till
• Troubleshooting invoices and online payments