The customer wants their company on a bill they have already paid — transcript

Play this as a presentation — one slide per step, with the same narration. Every word of every step is on this page.

This lesson is for you when a customer comes back — that afternoon, or next month — with a receipt they paid as a walk-in, and says their company needs an e-invoice for it. Whether it can still be done is a fair question, and the counter needs an answer quickly. In about eleven minutes you will know that the answer depends on one thing, where the receipt has got to, and that the cheap routes all close on the same day.

Step 1 — Understand why the account cannot change but the buyer can

After this step you will know what the customer is actually asking for. The bill was rung up to your cash customer and finalised, and finalising is not cosmetic: it posted the sale, the money, the stock and the points. The account on a posted bill does not change, and it should not, because the money genuinely came in as cash. But the e-invoice buyer is a separate block on the document, deliberately kept apart from the account for exactly this case: a person who pays for something themselves and needs the tax document in their employer’s name. So the customer is not asking you to change who bought it. They are asking you to change who the tax record names, and that is a much smaller thing, provided you are in time.

Reference: Core Concepts — 1. FINAL is the only moment that matters

Step 2 — Find where the receipt is now

After this step you will know whether you are on the cheap road or the expensive one. The cheap road is open while the receipt is still waiting in the Batch Pool for next month’s consolidation, and it closes when that run happens. The bill itself cannot tell you which side of the run you are on: its Progress sub-tab keeps the Batch Pool stage lit after the sweep, because the pool row is kept and marked processed, and its Cancellation sub-tab shows a status only for a receipt that was reported on its own. So ask finance to look at the row in the Batch Pool of the admin applet. Unprocessed means still waiting, and the cheap road is open. Processed and success means the receipt is already one line inside a consolidated e-invoice, linked to it, and you are on the expensive road for the rest of this lesson.

Reference: My E-Invoice Admin Applet — 3. Pools — what the buttons do

Step 3 — Complete it in the Batch Pool and let it go out on its own

After this step you will know the best answer there is. While the receipt is still in the Batch Pool, finance opens it there, fills in the customer’s company name, tax number, registration number, address and contact, and uses Save and Resubmit. The receipt leaves the batch and goes to LHDN as an individual e-invoice in the company’s name. It does not matter that the bill’s submission type still says consolidated: a document whose details pass the mandatory check is sent individually regardless. Nothing else moves. No return, no new invoice, no stock, no contra. Your accounting still says cash customer, which is right. It works even for a request somebody missed last month, as long as the receipt has not yet been swept.

Reference: E-Invoice Pools: What You Can Do in Each Pool, and the Questions That Come Up Most — Frequently asked questions

Step 4 — Or let the customer do it themselves

After this step you will know the answer that costs you nothing at all. If your company has given buyers a way in, the customer can find their own receipt by the bill number with its date and amount, and key their company’s details themselves. The request is processed the moment they submit it, with no approval: the details are copied onto the receipt, it leaves the batch, and an individual e-invoice is built in the company’s name and queued. Two limits. The portal finds only receipts dated this month, so a receipt from last month comes through you, or through your web store’s request form if you have one. And a request that fails to build leaves the receipt in no e-invoice at all, so a customer who reports that nothing has happened sends finance to Portal Request, under Internal Submission, to fix the failed row.

Reference: MY E-Invoice Portal Applet — Overview

Step 5 — After the consolidation has run

After this step you will be able to tell a customer why last month’s receipt is harder. Once the consolidated e-invoice for the month has been sent, the receipt stays inside it, and once LHDN validates it, it is one line inside a filed tax document. Do not reach for a cancellation: it cancels the whole consolidated e-invoice, every receipt in it, and those receipts do not go back to the pool; support has to push them back by name. Do not cancel a month’s document for one customer. The customer’s own e-invoice is now a question for whoever handles your tax, and the choice of correction is theirs. If the customer must become a real account anyway, the next step is the route that does that.

Reference: MY E-Invoice Portal Applet — Troubleshooting

Step 6 — Reverse and re-bill when the account itself must change

After this step you will know the full-price route and what it moves. When the customer must become a real account, with terms and statements, or the receipt is already inside a validated document, the sale is reversed and re-issued: a sales return against the bill, a new sales invoice under the proper customer account, and a contra between the two. It is the only route that changes who bought it, and it touches everything. The return brings the goods back into stock and reverses the sale and the receivable; the new invoice sends them out again, so the pair must net to nothing or the shop is wrong by one laptop. The original’s e-invoice does not vanish: an individual one is cancelled inside seventy-two hours or credited after, and a consolidated one is not cancelled for one receipt; that correction is for whoever handles your tax. The new invoice gets its own e-invoice.

Reference: Core Concepts — 4. How a wrong bill is reversed

Step 7 — Tell the customer what they will see, and when

After this step you will not promise something that will not arrive. Whichever route you took, the customer receives a validated e-invoice by e-mail only if your company’s Send Email To Buyer switch is on; with it off, nothing is sent and they have to be given the document another way. Once the sale has been submitted, the bill’s own Submission sub-tab shows the validation link and the QR code, and Export prints the e-invoice, so you can hand them a copy from the counter. On the MyInvois portal the e-invoice appears under the date it was sent, not the date of the original sale, because BigLedger always sends today’s issue time. So a receipt from August completed in September is a September e-invoice at LHDN, and a customer asking how soon it will show is waiting on the queue, usually hours.

Reference: My E-Invoice Admin Applet — 4. Submission, validation and e-mail (scheduled runs)

How the steps fit together

    flowchart TD
  s1["Step 1 — Understand why the account cannot change but the buyer can"]
  s2["Step 2 — Find where the receipt is now"]
  s3["Step 3 — Complete it in the Batch Pool and let it go out on its own"]
  s4["Step 4 — Or let the customer do it themselves"]
  s5["Step 5 — After the consolidation has run"]
  s6["Step 6 — Reverse and re-bill when the account itself must change"]
  s7["Step 7 — Tell the customer what they will see, and when"]
  s1 --> s2
  s2 --> s3
  s3 --> s4
  s4 --> s5
  s5 --> s6
  s6 --> s7
  

Check yourself

Three to five questions on what you just heard. Every correct answer links to the page that makes it correct, so you can check the source, not just the mark.

Next: Your after-Final tools, and which of them the e-invoice notices · Back to the series · Play this as a presentation