Start from what happened
| What happened | Use | Screen |
|---|---|---|
| A customer or anyone paid you | Receipt voucher | Receipt voucher (Record any money received with a receipt voucher) |
| You paid a supplier, an expense or a person | Payment voucher | Payment voucher (Pay a supplier or an expense with a payment voucher) |
| A supplier refunded you, or you refunded a customer | Journal voucher between the party and the cash or bank account, because the receipt voucher does not offer suppliers and the payment voucher does not offer customers. An account set up as both customer and supplier appears in both | Journal voucher (Make adjustments with a journal voucher) |
| You moved money between your own cash and bank accounts | Contra voucher | Contra voucher (Move money between cash and bank with a contra voucher) |
| Two ledgers need to be corrected or moved against each other, and no money moved | Journal voucher | Journal voucher (Make adjustments with a journal voucher) |
| A party's account must go down (a discount, a goods return you will not invoice) or up (an extra charge), without goods or money | Credit note or debit note | Credit note, Debit note (Issue a credit note, Issue a debit note) |
| Goods went back to the supplier | Purchase return | Purchase return (Return goods to a supplier) |
| Goods came back from the customer | Sales return | Sales return (Take goods back with a sales return) |
| You received a cheque dated in the future, or cash you have not banked yet | Cheque, Provisional cash | Cheque, Provisional cash (Record and deposit cheques, Record cash you have not banked yet) |
| A balance must move from one branch to another inside the same ledger | Contra journal voucher | A tab of the Journal voucher screen, shown only when your company switched it on (Move ledger balances between branches) |
If goods or stock moved, use a purchase or sales document, not a voucher: the vouchers on this page never change stock.
Credit note and debit note
Both change one party's account (a customer, a supplier or both) and one or more other ledgers (income, expense and the like), with no money and no stock.
| Credit note | Debit note | |
|---|---|---|
| The party is | Credited | Debited |
| The ledgers you list are | Debited | Credited |
| On a customer | The customer owes less (a discount given) | The customer owes more (an extra charge) |
| On a supplier | You owe the supplier more (an extra charge from the supplier) | You owe the supplier less (a discount or credit from the supplier) |
Use a purchase return when goods went back. Use a debit note for a supplier's price correction after the invoice, and a credit note for a discount you give a customer after the invoice. A line on your VAT ledger asks for its Vatable amount, so the note appears on the VAT reports when it should.
Two things to decide before you save
- For a receipt or a payment, say whether it is against an invoice, an advance or other: only a voucher against an invoice clears that invoice (What clears what in the customer's account, Pay a supplier and what clears what).
- To correct a voucher, edit it while it is not approved and not reconciled, or make a correcting voucher (Change or delete a saved voucher).