Book a supplier's invoice and pay it

Steps 5 and 6 of the standard procurement workflow: book the supplier’s invoice, the document that puts the stock on hand and what you owe in your ledger, then pay it. It follows Step 4, where the goods were received on a plain Purchase GRN. Three checks first: a GRN Stock In is billed on a Purchase Invoice No Stock In, never on this full invoice, or the stock is counted twice (Mixing the two receipt paths); if your Knock Off Configuration generates the invoice when the GRN goes FINAL, open that one instead of creating a second (Step 4); and the default GL codes in Before you start must be linked, or the invoice goes FINAL with no journal. The running example is 200 wireless earbuds at RM 128 each, RM 25,600 before tax, on 30-day terms (Meet GadgetSphere).

1. Step 5: book the supplier’s invoice.
2. Step 6: pay the supplier.

Step 5: Book the supplier’s invoice

Finance > Purchase Invoice (Internal) > Internal Purchase Invoice > Create

This is the step that does the work.

Open the Purchase Invoice (Internal) applet and click Create. Set the branch and location — these two are the only unconditionally required header fields — then the transaction date (the date on the supplier’s invoice, not today) and the supplier’s own invoice number in the reference field. Your credit terms are stored on the document when Purchaser is filled in, but a purchase invoice gets no due date — the field is commented out of this applet and the column stays null, so Overdue Documents can never show a purchase invoice. Age your payables on the transaction date plus the supplier’s terms, or from the Payment Voucher’s outstanding list.

On the Account tab, pick the supplier. Their AR/AP type decides which creditor account this invoice will credit, so a supplier set up with the wrong type posts to the wrong place silently.

On the KO For tab, choose Purchase GRN and pick the receipt you finalised in Step 4. Only finalised, not-fully-knocked-off documents are listed. If a FINAL, unbilled GRN is missing from the list, the company’s Knock Off Configuration has no enabled Purchase GRN → Purchase Invoice row and the GRN’s FINAL wrote no queue rows — an administrator’s one-off fix, not something to work around by typing the lines. The lines come across with the received quantities. Then set the transaction date again: the knock-off stamps today’s date over the supplier’s date you entered, and an invoice left on today’s date posts — input tax included — in the month you keyed it instead of the month it was issued. If your supplier billed you for a different quantity or a different price than you received, this is where you find out — and this is the moment to stop and query it, not after FINAL.

For our order, the invoice should show 200 units at RM 128, RM 25,600 net, RM 1,536 SST, RM 27,136 total. If the supplier has billed RM 132 a unit, the invoice line will show it and your total will not match the order. Do not “just post it” — a purchase invoice is far harder to correct than a draft is to abandon.

Check the Line Items tab once more, then click FINAL.

What FINAL does here. The invoice locks and, a moment later, the posting job writes:

Dr  Purchase (or the item's GL code)   RM 25,600
Dr  Input Tax                          RM  1,536
    Cr  Creditor — the supplier                RM 27,136

and books 200 units into stock at GS-KV-01, creating the serial number records and updating the item’s last purchase cost to RM 128.

Which GL code the purchase line lands in is decided in this order: a GL code on the line, then a GL code on the document header, then the item’s own company GL link for purchases, then the company’s default PURCHASE code. Tax lines always use the company default INPUT_TAX.

Open the Posting tab to confirm. It shows five statuses — Journal, Inventory, Membership Points, Cashbook, Tax — and the TraceDocument tab shows the actual journal and inventory rows that were created. If Journal and Inventory both show as posted, you are done.

Watch out for — and notice that these behave differently:

• A locked period — The selected date falls within a locked fiscal period. This one stops FINAL; the invoice stays a draft. Change the date or ask your finance manager to reopen the period.
• “Generic Document has already been posted to FINAL” — someone finalised it already. Reload the listing before you assume it failed.
• A missing GL mapping does not stop FINAL. The invoice goes FINAL, and the posting job that runs afterwards fails with MISSING_DEFAULT_GL_CODE: <code> when the creditor account for this supplier’s AR/AP type has no default GL code. You will not see a message on the FINAL button; the Posting tab shows Journal as failed and TraceDocument has no journal rows. Fix the mapping in the Chart of Account applet, then go to Financial Report > Error Checking > Trace Document, find the invoice under Missing Journal, and Resolve it. The stock movement is a separate processor and has usually posted already — do not re-key the invoice.
• A purchase or tax line with no GL code fails nothing — it posts wrong. The job leaves the line out and builds the supplier’s line from what remains, so the journal balances. A RM 1,060 invoice (RM 1,000 of laptops, RM 60 SST) with no PURCHASE code posts debit input tax RM 60, credit trade creditors RM 60; once you pay the RM 1,060, trade creditors carries a RM 1,000 debit. You notice it only in the payable GL account, which stops agreeing with the creditor ageing — the supplier statement and ageing are built from documents and look right. A supplier with no AR/AP type is the exception: no supplier line, and the job fails with TOTAL_DEBITS_AND_TOTAL_CREDITS_NOT_BALANCES (or NO_JOURNAL_CREATED if no line resolved at all). Before go-live, check every purchase, return and tax code has a company default, or every item its own.

Step 6: Pay the supplier

You have two routes, and which one you use depends on whether you are settling one invoice or several.

One invoice, paid in full or in part. Open the invoice, go to its Payment tab, and record the settlement there. The methods on offer are the ones assigned to your branch in Branch Settings. If you are offsetting against a deposit you had already paid the supplier, or against a credit note, use the Contra tab instead.

Several invoices in one payment. Use the Payment Voucher (Internal) applet:

Finance > Payment Voucher (Internal) > Internal Payment Voucher > Create

Set the payee to the supplier, add one payment line for the money actually leaving your bank (cheque, transfer, cash, card), and use the voucher’s contra to link the purchase invoices you are settling. Click FINAL. BigLedger posts the creditor journal and writes one cashbook transaction per payment line — and those cashbook lines are exactly what you will later tick off against your bank statement in Bank Reconciliation. One payment line per real bank movement keeps that reconciliation clean; a single line covering three separate transfers will not match anything.

What success looks like for this part

The invoice’s Posting tab shows Journal and Inventory both posted, the 200 units are on hand at GS-KV-01, and once you have paid, the invoice is settled on the supplier’s account. These are checks 2 to 4 of the whole order’s success check.

Common mistakes in this part

Finalising the invoice before checking the price. FINAL posts the ledger and the stock and cannot be undone — the only routes back are VOID (refused once a purchase return is linked, and for a self-billed invoice; once the company is live on e-Invoice the invoice’s own screen hides VOID, but the listing’s VOID still voids an ordinary purchase invoice) or an adjusting note. For an invoice that is too high that is a purchase debit note, which lowers what you owe; a purchase credit note raises it. A price query costs five minutes before FINAL and half a day after it.

Treating a FINAL invoice as a posted one. FINAL is the status; the journal is a job that runs afterwards, and a missing GL mapping fails the job without touching the status. Symptom: the invoice is on the listing as FINAL, the supplier’s balance has not moved, and the Posting tab shows Journal failed. Fix the mapping and Resolve it from Trace Document — do not void and re-key.

Related documentation

• Standard Procurement Workflow: the whole order, with its success check.
• Purchase Invoice (Internal) and Payment Voucher (Internal): the screen references.