Invoices
The billing documents — what you charge customers, and what suppliers charge you.
An invoice records money owed. Carbon has two kinds that behave almost identically: a sales invoice is what you bill a customer, and a purchase invoice is the bill a supplier sends you. Both are drawn from an upstream document, both post to the ledger, and in both, payment is a state on the invoice rather than a separate record.
Where they come from
A sales invoice is raised from a sales order, or from a posted shipment — billing on the order or billing on what actually shipped. A purchase invoice is raised from a purchase order, keeping the lines that still have something to bill. Either way the new invoice opens at Draft, fully editable, and links each line back to the order line it bills.
A purchase invoice reconciles on the purchase order line, not on a receipt — there's no direct receipt link, and a receipt isn't even required to bill. Posting clears the goods-received-not-invoiced accrual against the shared order line and books any price difference to variance.
Status lifecycle
Both start at Draft and lock the moment they leave it — numbers that have entered the books can't be edited in place.
| Sales invoice | Purchase invoice | |
|---|---|---|
| Drafting | Draft, Pending | Draft, Pending |
| Posted | Submitted | Open |
| Paying | Partially Paid → Paid | Partially Paid → Paid |
| Reversed | Voided | Voided |
| Credit | Credit Note Issued | Debit Note Issued, Return |
| Past due | Overdue | Overdue |
The posted state has a different name on each side — Submitted for sales, Open for purchase — but means the same thing: posted to the ledger, awaiting payment. Overdue isn't set by hand; it's computed when an unpaid invoice passes its due date.
Posting
Posting an invoice writes its general-ledger entries — receivables against sales for a sale, payables against inventory or WIP for a purchase — but only when accounting is enabled for the company. Posting also bumps the invoiced quantity on each order line and stamps the posting date.
Posting never marks an invoice Paid — it lands on Submitted or Open. Recording payment is a separate, deliberate step. A posted invoice can't be deleted either; to undo one you void it, which writes reversing entries rather than erasing history.
Payment
Payment in Carbon is field-based: an invoice carries its own status, paid date, and balance. There's no separate payment transaction — marking an invoice Paid stamps the date and settles the balance. That keeps the whole money story on one record, from draft through posted to paid.