Invoice data fields and master data

The pillar guide

Invoice data fields and master data: the complete field guide - Parties, lines, totals, references and identifiers, and the master data that keeps them consistent across systems.

Working guides in this topic

• Dates on an invoice: issue, supply and due - Three different dates, three different meanings, and why confusing them breaks tax and payment logic.
• Field mapping that survives change - A mapping table with owner, source, target, rule and test, reviewed when either system changes.
• Invoice lines: quantity, price, allowances and charges - Line structure, allowances, charges and the line total, and how a small line error becomes a large total error.
• Master data governance for invoicing - One owner per master record, one change process, and one audit trail for party, product and tax data.
• Payment terms and bank details on an invoice - Due date, payment means and account details, and the fraud risk when bank details change without a check.
• Product and service coding on invoice lines - Buyer and seller codes, standard classifications, and what to do when the two code sets do not agree.
• References: orders, contracts and delivery notes - How references tie an invoice to the transaction that created it, and why a missing reference blocks matching.
• Seller and buyer party fields: identifiers that must match - Legal name, address, tax identifier and electronic address, and what happens when one of them does not match the receiver record.
• Tax identifiers and VAT numbers on an invoice - What a tax identifier proves, what it does not prove, and how to check it without inventing a verification service.
• Totals, tax and payable amounts: the arithmetic chain - Net, tax, allowances, charges and payable, in the order a validation rule checks them.

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