How to change a sent invoice

On Aiwyn Payments, your invoices come from your practice management system, so you change them there. See the first section of this article.

This article answers what you can do when an invoice you've already sent is wrong, and what each option changes on the invoice, in Accounts Receivable and for your client.

On Aiwyn Payments, your practice management system owns the invoice

If your firm uses Aiwyn Payments with a practice management system, the invoice your client sees in Aiwyn is the file your firm sent from that system. Aiwyn presents it as received and doesn't change it.

The amount due Aiwyn shows your client is the amount due held in your practice management system.

So you correct, reverse, or void the invoice in your practice management system, and the change reaches Aiwyn when your data next syncs.

If you send a corrected invoice again from your practice management system, the client portal shows the most recent invoice PDF version you sent.

The remainder of this article applies to Aiwyn Practice only.

A sent invoice isn't edited, so every change happens around it

Once a draft invoice is sent, it moves to Invoices and stays there as part of your firm's billing history. You can't edit a sent invoice. The document your client received stays as it was.

That leaves three kinds of change:

• Change what the client owes. You record a transaction against the invoice in Accounts Receivable. The invoice stays as sent, and its Outstanding balance moves.
• Cancel the invoice. You reverse it. The invoice stops counting toward the client's balance, and its work goes back to a draft you can fix and send again.
• Leave the invoice and its balance alone. You fix how the invoice reached the client, or how a payment was recorded.

Why Aiwyn keeps every transaction rather than deleting it is covered in Why AR transactions are corrected, not deleted.

What's wrong decides which change fits

An invoice that looks wrong isn't always wrong. If the invoice email never reached the client, the invoice is undelivered, not unpaid, and no transaction should be recorded. If the client paid outside Aiwyn, the invoice is right and the payment is missing. Check those two first, because they're the only cases that leave your financial record untouched.

These changes are alternatives, not stages. Each one says something different about the money, so the wrong one leaves a false record even after the balance is right. A written-off invoice and a paid invoice both show no Outstanding balance, but only one of them was paid.

An adjustment changes what the client owes and leaves the invoice as sent

A credit adjustment, debit memo or write-off is its own transaction in Accounts Receivable. None of them edits the invoice. A credit adjustment or write-off can be allocated to the invoice and reduces its Outstanding balance. A debit memo instead creates a separate receivable charge on the client's account; it doesn't increase the original invoice's total or Outstanding balance. Each transaction sits beside the invoice in the ledger with the Note you enter.

This route suits an invoice that was right to send but now needs a lower amount. The work on the invoice stays billed, and no time or expenses go back to WIP. Payments already applied to the invoice can stay where they are.

A credit adjustment and a write-off both reduce the balance, but they record different reasons. See How write-offs differ from credit adjustments. For how to record each one, see Adjust a sent invoice balance and Record adjustments, memos and write-offs.

Reversing cancels an invoice that shouldn't stand and gives you back its draft

When the invoice itself is the mistake, an adjustment would leave a wrong invoice in your history with a correction beside it. Reversing undoes the invoice instead, so you can bill the work again correctly.

When you reverse an invoice, you give a reason, and Aiwyn:

• Marks the invoice Reversed and removes its effect on the client's balance in Accounts Receivable. The reversed invoice disappears from the active Invoices list but remains in the Accounts Receivable and audit history as Reversed. The client can no longer see or pay it in the client portal, and Aiwyn doesn't send the client a reversal notification.
• Reverses any late fees on the invoice. See How late fees are calculated.
• Returns the invoice's time and expenses to WIP as unbilled.
• Restores the invoice's draft in Draft Invoices, with its line items, write-ups and write-downs, and edited descriptions.
• Logs the reason with your name and the date.

You then correct the restored draft and send it again, or delete it if the work shouldn't be billed this way. See Edit a draft invoice and What happens when a draft invoice is returned or deleted. The corrected invoice will receive a new invoice number once posted. See How invoice numbers are generated.

Reverse Invoice is an action on the invoice in Invoices. It's also available when you open an invoice's transaction in Accounts Receivable.

Only an unpaid invoice built from an Aiwyn draft can be reversed

Reversing hands the invoice's work back to a draft, so Aiwyn allows it only when nothing else depends on the invoice:

• The invoice isn't fully paid. Current product logic allows a partly paid invoice to reach reversal while it remains Posted. Reversal doesn't refund or reverse its payment; the payment remains a separate Accounts Receivable transaction and may need to be refunded, unallocated or reallocated. A fully paid invoice doesn't offer Reverse Invoice.
• The invoice came from a draft invoice in Aiwyn. Without a draft, there's nothing to restore.
• None of its work is on another draft. If work from the invoice has since been added to a different draft, Aiwyn lists the conflicting drafts and doesn't reverse the invoice.
• You have permission to reverse invoices. In Billing Permissions V2, the permission is Billing.ReverseInvoice for that invoice. The V1 permission is BILLING_REVERSE_INVOICE (also represented internally as billing_reverse_invoice).

Closed-accounting-period enforcement is documented as planned, not current. Don't promise that Aiwyn will block a reversal solely because the accounting period is closed.

An invoice for a zero amount can always be reversed. When an invoice can't be reversed, leave the invoice in place and use the Accounts Receivable action that matches the correction: refund, unallocate or reallocate a payment; record a credit adjustment or write-off; or add a separate debit memo.

Adjusting suits a wrong amount, and reversing suits a wrong invoice

Reversal is meant for a full redo, usually soon after sending. A discount, a partial correction or a correction to an invoice from an earlier period is usually an adjustment. Closed-period reversal locks are planned rather than currently enforced.

Related

• Why AR transactions are corrected, not deleted
• Adjust a sent invoice balance
• Record credit adjustments, debit memos, and write-offs
• How write-offs differ from credit adjustments
• Invoice correction transaction reference
• Resend an invoice and confirm delivery
• Record a payment received outside Aiwyn
• Why an invoice still shows a balance after a payment
• Edit a draft invoice
• What happens when a draft invoice is returned or deleted
• How invoice numbers are generated
• How an invoice is issued and delivered
• Invoice status reference
• How late fees are calculated
• How Aiwyn detects changes in your practice management data
• Changes to the Invoice Template in your Practice Management System