Overview of the invoicing process

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Depending on your business and the application you use, there are different ways to automate the customer invoice creation in Odoo. Usually, draft invoices are created by the system (with information coming from other documents like sales order or contracts) and accountant just have to validate draft invoices and send the invoices in batch (by regular mail or email).

Depending on your business, you may opt for one of the following way to create draft invoices:

:menuselection:`Sales Order --> Invoice`

In most companies, salespeople create quotations that become sales order once they are validated. Then, draft invoices are created based on the sales order. You have different options like:

Invoice on ordered quantity: invoice the full order before triggering the delivery order
Invoice based on delivered quantity: see next section

Invoice before delivery is usually used by the eCommerce application when the customer pays at the order and we deliver afterwards. (pre-paid)

For most other use cases, it's recommended to invoice manually. It allows the salesperson to trigger the invoice on demand with options: invoice ready to invoice line, invoice a percentage (advance), invoice a fixed advance.

This process is good for both services and physical products.

Read more: Invoice based on sales orders.

:menuselection:`Sales Order --> Delivery --> Invoice`

Retailers and eCommerce usually invoice based on delivered quantity , instead of sales order. This approach is suitable for businesses where the quantities you deliver may differs from the ordered quantities: foods (invoice based on actual Kg).

This way, if you deliver a partial order, you only invoice for what you really delivered. If you do back orders (deliver partially and the rest later), the customer will receive two invoices, one for each delivery order.

:menuselection:`Recurring Contracts (subscriptions) --> Invoices`

For subscriptions, an invoice is triggered periodically, automatically. The frequency of the invoicing and the services/products invoiced are defined on the contract.

:menuselection:`eCommerce Order --> Invoice`

An eCommerce order will also trigger the creation of the order when it is fully paid. If you allow paying orders by check or wire transfer, Odoo only creates an order and the invoice will be triggered once the payment is received.

Creating an invoice manually

Users can also create invoices manually without using contracts or a sales order. It's a recommended approach if you do not need to manage the sales process (quotations), or the delivery of the products or services.

Even if you generate the invoice from a sales order, you may need to create invoices manually in exceptional use cases:

if you need to create a refund
If you need to give a discount
if you need to change an invoice created from a sales order
if you need to invoice something not related to your core business

Others

Some specific modules are also able to generate draft invoices:

membership: invoice your members every year
repairs: invoice your after-sale services