Basic Business Operations
The vocabulary, in plain English, with the one thing about each that catches people out.
Customers and suppliers
Q: Where do customers live?
In the customer record — name, contact details, addresses, credit terms and limit, and the e-Invoice details you will need when you bill them. A supplier is the same shape of record on the buying side.
Q: Is a “customer” the same as a “member”?
No, and this trips people up because the wiki’s Administration section uses the word for both. A customer is who you invoice. A member is somebody in your loyalty programme who collects points. A walk-in shopper can be both.
Q: Will BigLedger stop me selling to a customer who owes too much?
Only in one specific way, and it is worth understanding before you rely on it. Nothing works out a customer’s exposure while you type. A scheduled job compares outstanding balances against credit limits and overdue terms and flags the failures; a flagged customer is then refused on a cash bill, sales invoice, sales order or outbound delivery order.
So the block is only as current as the last run of that job, it does not cover other document types, and — importantly — the job clears every existing flag before it recalculates, so a flag you set by hand does not survive. If you want a permanent stop, set the customer’s credit limit.
Items
Q: What is an item?
Anything you sell or buy: a product, a service, a delivery charge, a voucher, a warranty. Every line on every document points at one.
Q: Why are there two item applets?
Because every tradeable item has two records: the document item (price, tax codes, e-Invoice classification — the commercial side) and the inventory item (the stock-keeping record that balances and serial numbers hang off).
Create items in Doc Item Maintenance and BigLedger makes and links both. Create one in the inventory applet alone and it cannot go on any document.
Q: What can I not change about an item later?
Its code, its type, and — for a stock item — how quantity is tracked (plain, batch, serial, bin). Those are permanent. Everything else is editable. See choosing an item type.
Selling
Q: What are all these documents for?
| Document | What it does |
|---|---|
| Quotation | A price the customer can accept. Commits nothing |
| Sales order | The commitment. Drives picking and delivery, reduces available stock |
| Delivery note / delivery order | Fulfilment paperwork |
| Sales invoice | The one that counts — takes stock out, posts the revenue, the receivable and the tax |
| POS cash bill | The counter equivalent: payment, stock and posting in one document |
| Sales return | Goods coming back in |
| Credit note | Money off, without goods moving |
Q: So my stock report will not change when I deliver?
Correct. It changes when you invoice. This one fact explains most of the “where has my stock gone” and “where has it not gone” questions in BigLedger.
Getting paid
Q: How do I record a payment?
As a receipt voucher — its own document. There is no “record payment” button on an invoice.
Q: The customer paid but the invoice still shows outstanding.
The receipt was finalised without a contra. The money is recorded and in the cashbook; it was just never applied to the invoice. Open the receipt and apply it on the Contra tab. See recording a customer payment.
Q: What about partial payments?
Apply what you have; the rest stays outstanding. A payment plan in BigLedger is simply several receipt vouchers against the same invoice — there is nothing else to set up.
Buying
Q: What is the sequence?
Purchase order → goods received note → purchase invoice → payment.
Q: The goods arrived and were received, but we have no stock.
Correct, and deliberate. A standard goods received note records the count and closes the order line; the purchase invoice books the stock in and creates what you owe. Between the two, the goods are visible as received-not-invoiced.
Some companies are configured the other way round, with a stock-in receipt paired with a no-stock-in invoice. Find out which pair yours runs — mixing them counts stock twice or never.
Stock
Q: What is the difference between balance and available?
Balance is what you physically hold. Available is that, less what open sales orders have already promised. A gap between them is open orders, not a discrepancy.
Q: Where do I see it?
Stock Balance for the live position, Stock Availability for what can still be promised, and the Stock Report applet for the thirteen reports behind them.
What success looks like
You have the vocabulary when you can answer:
- Which sales document moves stock? (The invoice, or the cash bill.)
- Which purchase document books stock? (The purchase invoice, not the GRN.)
- What clears a customer’s invoice when they pay? (The contra on the receipt voucher.)
Common mistakes
| What goes wrong | The fix |
|---|---|
| Reconciling stock against orders | Reconcile against invoices and cash bills |
| Expecting a “record payment” button on an invoice | Money in is a receipt voucher |
| Finalising a receipt without a contra | The invoice stays open; apply it |
| Expecting a GRN to add stock | The purchase invoice does |
| Relying on a credit limit to block an order at save | The block reads a flag set by a scheduled job |
| Creating items in the inventory applet | Create them in Doc Item Maintenance |