What is the Invoice from date?
A rule on the Create invoice task that sets the earliest date an invoice containing an order may be created.
Every order receives its own Invoice from date when it becomes Ready to invoice.
Why use it?
Invoice grouping decides which orders share an invoice, but not when that invoice may be created. Without an Invoice from rule, an order can be invoiced the moment it is Ready to invoice.
A finance team with a fixed routine (for example every Tuesday for the previous week's orders) no longer depends on manual date filters to avoid invoicing too early.
How does it work?
The rule is set once as a tenant default and overridden per customer only where a billing agreement differs.
On the Ready to invoice tab, orders that are not yet due carry a Not yet due tag and can be filtered on date.
Creating an invoice that contains a not-yet-due order shows a warning. The warning does not block.
Users must have the Super Admin role to configure the Invoice from rule.
The rule cannot be combined with Auto create invoice when order is ready to invoice. Switching one on disables the other for that tenant or customer. See INVOICES - Auto-create invoice when an order is Ready to invoice.
The Invoice from date is not available in custom exports or the External API.
Terminology
Term | Definition |
Invoice from | The rule that defines how long after a reference date an order may be invoiced. |
Reference date | The date the rule counts from: First pickup date, Last delivery date or Ready to invoice date. |
Invoice from date | The resulting date on an individual order. Calculated once, when the order becomes Ready to invoice. |
Not yet due | Yellow tag on an order whose Invoice from date has not been reached. |
Invoicing preferences | The grouping setting on the Create invoice task (for example Custom order grouping or Separate invoice per order). |
Use cases
A carrier invoices every Tuesday for the previous week's orders, one invoice per order. A delay after Ready to invoice keeps the current week's orders out of the run.
A carrier groups orders per month and must not invoice before the month has ended. Next month after the Last delivery date sets the Invoice from date to the first day of the following month.
Most customers follow one invoicing routine, but one customer has a billing agreement with a longer delay. The tenant default covers the majority, a customer override covers the exception.
Configure the Invoice from rule
Set the tenant default
Navigate to CONFIGURATION > Tasks.
Click the Invoices section on the left side.
Select the Create invoice task.
Choose the Invoicing preferences (grouping) first. The choice decides where the Invoice from rule appears (see Custom order grouping below). Existing grouping stays unchanged.
Set the Invoice from dropdown to Enabled. The default is Disabled, which means no Invoice from date is calculated.
Fill in the fields that appear:
Timing: X days after, Next week after or Next month after.
Number of days: only shown for X days after.
Reference date: First pickup date, Last delivery date or Ready to invoice date. Every timing can be combined with every reference date.
SAVE the configuration.
Timing | Invoice from date of the order | Example |
X days after | Reference date plus the configured Number of days | Ready to invoice on 7 Oct, 3 days after: invoice from 10 Oct |
Next week after | Start of the week following the reference date | Last delivery on Wednesday: invoice from the following Monday |
Next month after | Start of the month following the reference date | Last delivery on 12 March: invoice from 1 April |
The Auto create invoice when order is ready to invoice toggle is greyed out while Invoice from is Enabled.
Custom order grouping
With Invoicing preferences set to Custom order grouping, the Invoice from block at the bottom of the configuration disappears. Instead, each rule card has its own Invoice from block (below Grouping, above Conditions) with the same dropdown and fields.
This allows different timing per group. A weekly rule for one segment and a monthly rule for another segment can each have their own Invoice from rule.
For the options Consolidate all orders on 1 invoice, Limit amount of orders per invoice and Separate invoice per order, one rule applies to the whole configuration.
Override per customer
Navigate to COMPANIES > Customers.
Click the relevant customer.
Scroll to the Tasks section.
Click Create invoice (manual completion). The same configuration panel as on tenant level opens.
Choose an option in the Invoice from dropdown:
Default (enabled): the customer follows the tenant default. The label reflects the current tenant setting, so it reads Default (enabled) while the tenant rule is enabled.
Enabled (override): the customer gets its own rule. Timing, Number of days and Reference date work as on tenant level.
Disabled (override): the customer gets no Invoice from date, even when the tenant default is enabled.
SAVE the customer configuration.
Customers and tenants without any rule behave exactly as before.
Work with the Invoice from date
See which orders are due
Go to INVOICES > Orders to invoice > Ready to invoice.
Switch on the Invoice from date column: open Customise (icon left of the search field), search for Invoice from date and switch it on. The column is hidden by default and appears at the end of the list. Drag the column to your desired place if needed.
Check the date and the yellow Not yet due tag in that column: the order is Ready to invoice, but the Invoice from date has not been reached.
Filtering with the date type 'Invoice from date' is available (pick a custom range with both a start and an end date, or All dates for the date range).
📚 The Invoice from date is calculated once, at the moment an order becomes Ready to invoice, using the rule in force at that time. It is not recalculated. So changing a rule only affects orders that become Ready to invoice afterwards. Orders already on the Ready to invoice tab keep their date. Orders that became ready before the rule was configured have no date and show no Not yet due tag.
There is no Invoice from date before an order is Ready to invoice, so upcoming invoicing cannot be previewed.
Create invoices
Select the orders and click Create invoice.
When the selection contains orders that are not yet due, the Create invoice(s) modal shows a yellow warning:
One or more selected orders have not yet reached their invoice from date.
The affected orders are listed in the warning, and each carries a Not yet due tag in the order list of the modal.
Click Cancel to go back and adjust the selection, or Save to create the invoice anyway.
The warning only informs. It has no buttons of its own, and invoicing before the Invoice from date remains possible.
When several orders share one invoice, that invoice is due once the last of its orders is due.
Invoices are not created automatically when the date is reached. A user still creates them.
Troubleshooting
Issue | Resolution |
No Invoice from date column on the Ready to invoice tab. | The column is hidden by default. Open Customise, search for Invoice from date and switch it on. |
An order has no Invoice from date and no Not yet due tag. | The order became Ready to invoice before the rule was configured, or the customer is set to Disabled (override). Such orders can be invoiced at any time without a warning. |
Auto create invoice when order is ready to invoice switched off after configuring the rule (or the reverse). | The two settings are mutually exclusive. Switching one on disables the other for that tenant or customer. |
The Invoice from date did not change after editing the rule. | The date is fixed when the order becomes Ready to invoice. Only orders that become ready after the change use the new rule. |
A customer follows the wrong timing. | Check Companies > Customers > customer > Tasks > Create invoice. Default follows the tenant, while Enabled (override) and Disabled (override) replace it. |