Lifecycle, status and payment

The pillar guide

Invoice lifecycle, status and payment explained - Issue, delivery, acceptance, correction, payment and closure, and the status messages that mark each step.

Working guides in this topic

• Closing an invoice and its evidence - When an invoice is closed, what is kept, and how a closed invoice can still be found for audit.
• Delivery vs acceptance vs approval: three statuses that must not be confused - A delivered invoice may not be accepted, and an accepted invoice may not yet be approved for payment.
• Invoice exchange flow: states and hand-offs - The exchange as a chain of states, a worked hand-off example, what should be traceable, where exchanges fail, and how retries and corrections work.
• Lifecycle for credit notes - A credit note lifecycle that mirrors the original invoice, linked to it at every stage.
• Lifecycle for recurring invoices - Recurring invoices as a series of records, each with its own status, not as one repeating file.
• Lifecycle gaps when status is missing - What to do when a status message never arrives: enquiry, evidence and escalation, in order.
• Lifecycle monitoring dashboards that help - A dashboard that shows age, status and owner per invoice, and the exceptions that need a person.
• Payment status and reconciliation - Paid, partially paid, disputed and written off, reconciled against bank and ledger, invoice by invoice.
• Reminders and dunning without breaking the record - Reminders that reference the original invoice and its status, without creating a duplicate invoice.
• Status messages and their meanings - Common status messages, what each one commits the sender and receiver to, and what to do on each one.

All topics