I’m new on Quickfile and I have lots of questions, so please be patient with me in the next few weeks/months. Your forum is great and has already answered quite a few of my queries, but I couldn’t find an answer to the following.
I’m facing a bit of a dilemma with handling outstanding balances and duplicate invoices in Quickfile, and I was hoping to get some guidance from the community.
Here’s the situation: when I add a new client to Quickfile who has an outstanding balance, let’s say £60, the system automatically creates a new invoice for that amount. However, this client already has an existing invoice from my previous accounting system, Brightbook. The issue arises because this client doesn’t need a new invoice from Quickfile, as it would have a different invoice number and date of issue, effectively making it a duplicate invoice.
I’m wondering how I can manage this situation effectively in Quickfile without creating unnecessary duplicate invoices. Is there a way to reconcile the existing invoice from Brightbook with the outstanding balance in Quickfile? Or is there a workaround that I’m missing?
Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance for your help.
If the client has outstanding invoices from a previous system. have you entered these opening balances onto QuickFile already or as part of your opening trail balance?
Thank you for your answer. I’ve followed the steps outlined here, specifically in the section ‘Entering an opening balance’. So, while adding the new client, I went to the ‘Options’ tab and inputted an Opening Balance. However, upon saving the details, it automatically generated an invoice, which I believe was also sent to my client. Just to make sure, I reached out to them to explain that the invoice wasn’t necessary as they already had one detailing the same services.
I hope this clarifies things. I’m eager to hear your thoughts on how to resolve this issue.
In order to enter an opening balance on a client an invoice has to be created so that something outstanding is shown on their account and in the debtors control account and so there’s something to tag a payment to.
The opening balance option when creating their account will use the default numbering system, these are then flagged as sent rather than being actually sent out.
If you prefer you could ignore this when creating their record then create your own invoice overtyping the invoice number. You can then Flag this as sent rather than sending it out.
Please note the next invoice created will continue the numbering system from the last invoice number entered so you may need to overtype the next invoice number to return the sequence back
Thanks for clearing that up. I got it, but I’ve got another question related to it. So, the situation I mentioned earlier is not hypothetical and actually happened: I set up my client’s account with an Outstanding Balance, and that led to a duplicate invoice. From your words, I infer that I can just delete that duplicate and change the invoice number to match the number of the invoice I raised for the same client with my previous accountancy system Brightbook. Then once I’ve done this for all my clients with outstanding balances, I can overtype the invoice number again to start with the new tax year. But here’s my worry: does HMRC ever look into deleted invoices, or is it only the ones I include in my tax return that matter?
Basically, in more general terms and as a future reference as well, can I just delete an invoice (draft or not) and overwrite the number to keep things tidy without leaving any gaps when I haven’t yet sent this invoice to my clients (in which case instead I’d issue a credit note)?
Thank you,
Daniele
P.S. I know that QuickFile retains a copy of the deleted invoices.
I infer that I can just delete that duplicate and change the invoice number to match the number of the invoice I raised for the same client with my previous accountancy system Brightbook. Then once I’ve done this for all my clients with outstanding balances, I can overtype the invoice number again to start with the new tax year.
That’s correct
But here’s my worry: does HMRC ever look into deleted invoices, or is it only the ones I include in my tax return that matter?
Mainly the ones in your tax return (which is why you can not delete them). If you are audited at some point and they see a gap in your invoice sequence, we retain the deleted item as evidence.