Credits and Corrections
Correct a draft directly; correct an issued transaction with a document or entry that preserves the audit trail.
Choose the right correction
| Situation | Action |
|---|---|
| Draft invoice or quotation is wrong | Use Edit, or delete the draft and start again. |
| Issued invoice must be replaced | Use Credit and Re-invoice. |
| Only part of an invoice should be credited | Create a credit note for the affected quantities or values, then issue it. |
| A discount was agreed after the invoice went out | Use Grant Settlement Discount, from the payment's allocation screen or the invoice itself. |
| Issued credit note was wrong or should not have been raised | Use Cancel credit note on the credit note itself, then raise a new one if needed. |
| Payment was recorded incorrectly | Remove its allocations, Edit the amount, date or customer, then allocate again. See Payments and statements. |
| The receipt itself never happened | Delete the payment. Its allocations and ledger entry are reversed with it. |
| Posted accounting entry is wrong | Reverse it or post a correcting manual journal; do not erase history. |
Credit and re-invoice
- Open the issued invoice.
- Select Credit and Re-invoice and confirm the action.
- Review and issue the reversing credit note. Until it is issued, the customer still owes the original amount and no stock or ledger reversal has happened.
- Open the replacement invoice, make the correction, check its PDF, then issue or email it.
Issue a partial credit note
- Go to Sales > Credit Notes and create a credit note against the original invoice.
- Keep only the affected lines and adjust quantities or amounts. The total cannot exceed the remaining credit available on the invoice.
- Enter the reason, save the draft and review it.
- Select Mark as Issued. Send the PDF to the customer if required.
Grant a settlement discount
A discount agreed after the invoice was issued is a reduction in the price of a supply you have already made, so it is documented by a credit note rather than by changing the invoice. OxyAccounting raises and issues that credit note for you in one action.
It is normally granted where you notice it: open the payment, choose Allocate / Adjust, and take the Discount option on the invoice that is short. It is also available later from the invoice itself, under Grant Settlement Discount in Quick Actions. Company administrators only. The full steps are on Payments and statements.
- Enter the discount including VAT — the amount the customer was let off.
- It is spread across the invoice's own lines in proportion to their value, so each line's VAT treatment, income account and cost centre come with it. An invoice that was part zero-rated reclaims VAT only on its standard-rated share.
- It reduces your income, not an expense. A settlement discount changes what the sale was worth; it is not a cost of doing business.
- Nothing goes back into stock. A price concession is not a return — if goods are coming back, raise an ordinary credit note instead.
- You can discount more than is still owed if the customer had already paid. You are asked to confirm, and the difference becomes a credit on their account.
A settlement discount can be cancelled like any other credit note if it was granted in error, which puts the amount back on the invoice as owing. It cannot be granted on a draft, a cancelled invoice, one already fully credited, or one written off as a bad debt — where an invoice cannot take one, the screen says which of those applies.
What issuing the credit does
The customer balance, revenue, VAT and cost of sales are reversed for the credited amount. Tracked stock is returned. The original invoice cannot be credited again beyond its remaining eligible amount.
An invoice settled partly by payment and partly by credit reaches Paid once the two together cover it. Nothing is left owing, so nothing is left outstanding on the customer's account, in Aged Receivables or on the dashboard.
Undo an issued credit note
A credit note can be edited or deleted only while it is a draft. Once it is issued the customer holds a copy of it, and its number belongs to a sequence that must have no gaps, so it is cancelled rather than removed. The Edit and Delete buttons disappear at that point and Cancel credit note takes their place.
- Open the issued credit note, or use the Cancel action on the credit notes list. A company administrator is required.
- Confirm the cancellation.
- Check the invoice it was raised against. The credited amount is owed again, and the invoice's status moves back off Paid if the credit was what settled it.
- Raise a replacement credit note if one is still needed.
Cancelling reverses the credit note's ledger entry, takes back any stock it restored and stops it reducing the invoice. The credit note itself stays on the list marked Cancelled so the history and the number remain intact.
A cancelled credit note cannot be emailed, and its PDF prints with a CANCELLED watermark. A draft prints with a DRAFT watermark. Neither is a valid credit note for VAT, so neither should reach a customer looking like one.
A credit note keeps its invoice link for life. SARS requires a credit note to identify the invoice it corrects, so the link cannot be broken or re-pointed. Link to Invoice appears only on older credit notes that never had one, and it is available to administrators only.