Deposit invoices

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A “deposit invoice” is used either as a document presented to the customer so that he can pay the requested deposit, or as a document once payment of the deposit has been made, so that he can justify his accounting exit.

It is practical, but conceptually erroneous (see details below), resulting from an abusive administrative requirement. In fact, you never charge a deposit, but a complete supply.

What would be acceptable is to issue several invoices, similar to the status invoices used in the construction sector. Or to issue payment receipts, if the client needs to justify a disbursement.

However, advance payment invoices are widely used in certain sectors of activity, although their form is not always regulatory. There are several methods to handle this case, let's start with an example of an invoice for 100 euros with a deposit of 20.

It simply consists of issuing as many independent invoices as necessary.

Here you would issue invoice 1 for 10 euros, then invoice 2 for 90 euros.

This method is very easy in the case of an invoice with few lines, but becomes more difficult in the case of an invoice with many lines. In the latter case, you must use a reference document (a quote or an order, or even a BL) to generate the various invoices.

From a quote, for example, you would proceed as follows:

• establishment of a quote, and validation by the customer
• generation of an invoice from the quote
• application, via the context menu of the invoice lines table (Data → Modify lines), of a percentage on the quantities corresponding to the requested deposit, here 10%
• transmission of the invoice, possibly named “deposit invoice” via the context menu of the invoice table (Printing of specific information)
• then, generation of a new invoice from the same previous quote
• application, via the context menu of the invoice lines table, of a percentage on the quantities corresponding to that remaining, here 90%
• transmission of the second invoice to the customer.

It is carried out according to the following process:

1. You issue a quote, which mentions the amount or percentage of deposit you want.
2. The customer returns this quote to you with his agreement.
3. As soon as the agreement is received from the customer, you generate the invoice from the quote, and you transmit the invoice: Gestan will ask you if you wish to send a deposit invoice: answer yes: the invoice transmitted will be a “deposit invoice ”.
4. When he sends you the amount of the deposit, or if he had already sent it to you with his agreement on the quote in step 2, collect it on the invoice.
5. When you have completed the planned work, resubmit the same invoice. Gestan, knowing that the deposit has already been sent, will generate a normal invoice.

• We make a quote of 300 excluding tax, in which we ask for a deposit of 20% (60, Gestan calculates it automatically).
• The customer accepts this quote. We note the date of agreement in the Accepted on area of the quote
• We generate an invoice from the quote. This is the same amount as the quote, with the same deposit request amount
• When printing or sending by email, Gestan will display the following message:

If you answer Yes, the invoice that will be printed or transmitted will look like this:

The invoice is marked “Deposit invoice”, and the bottom of the invoice mentions the total amount of the deposit to be paid.

• When you receive the deposit (this may be the same day as receipt of the customer's agreement, therefore the same day as the invoice is issued), proceed to collect the deposit, at using the Cash button in the list of invoices. This button will open the payment screen, with all fields filled in by default:

On this screen, verify the items, then click Validate.

• When you have completed the work, all you need to do is send the same invoice to the customer: it will indicate the payments made, and the balance to be paid. As soon as the deposit is paid, Gestan no longer prints the words “deposit invoice”. If an edition is desired after receipt of the deposit, you may need to delete the payment, print the deposit invoice, and re-record the payment.

For any invoice, it is possible to define a invoicing schedule, the number of due dates, frequency, and amounts are freely definable.

If you want, for an invoice, to request a deposit and define a payment schedule, the method is very simple:

1. establish a quote mentioning a deposit amount
2. establish an invoice based on the quote
3. attach to the invoice a schedule including the payment of the deposit as the first due date

The result will be the publication, at the bottom of the invoice, of the due date to be paid, as below.

Note that, depending on the configuration options, the complete schedule can be printed (above the notification of the due date to be paid).

A deposit (we can also speak of an “advance”) is any partial payment which occurs at the conclusion of the sales contract or after its conclusion. It is a payment “to be used” on a purchase. It is impossible to renounce the purchase of the product once the deposit is paid, unless a new agreement is reached with the seller (excluding consumer credit).

It is possible to reimburse a deposit, with possible compensation, if the seller fails to fulfill its main obligation (delivery of a product, in particular).

The deposit (and its amount) must be mentioned as such in the sales contract, failing which the sums paid initially can be considered by the buyer as a deposit (In the latter case, the buyer loses the entirety of the deposit). amount paid if he cancels his order or withdraws).

VAT is due upon payment of the deposit, or upon issuance of the sales contract providing for it, depending on your VAT taxation method.

Article 289 of the CGI

Other “Billing” articles