Invoices
A demand for a specific period. Draft while you check it, Issued once approved — and an issued invoice is never edited.
An invoice is a demand for payment covering a specific period: this is what you owe for March.
Draft, then Issued
An invoice starts as a draft. Drafts are working documents — they do not appear on the statement, they carry no document number, and you can change or delete them.
Approving an invoice issues it. At that moment it gets its number, lands on the ledger, and becomes visible to the recipient.
An issued invoice is never edited. Not by you, not by anyone. If it is wrong, you correct it with a credit note.
That sounds rigid, and it is the point. An invoice is a financial record you have put in front of somebody; if it could be silently rewritten afterwards, neither your books nor their copy would mean anything. The trail of what was issued, then what corrected it is the thing an auditor, a tenant and a tribunal all rely on.
Document numbers
Numbers are assigned at approval, in sequence, with no gaps. Invoices and credit notes each run their own sequence.
Gap-free numbering is a SARS expectation, which is why the number is assigned when the document is issued rather than when the draft is created — a deleted draft would otherwise burn a number and leave a hole.
Tenant invoices and owner invoices
Tenant invoices are what the tenant owes: rent, utilities, anything else on the lease.
Owner invoices are the owner’s costs: your management fee, maintenance, levies paid on their behalf. They reduce the payout rather than demanding money.
Both come from charges, and the two are kept strictly apart. A tenant never sees an owner’s costs.
Ad-hoc invoices
Not everything is monthly. A once-off charge — a repair a tenant is liable for, a letting fee — can be raised as an ad-hoc invoice outside the regular run, and it carries an effective date so it lands in the right period.
Where invoices come from
Most are generated for you: on a schedule, the engine reads each active lease’s charges and produces that month’s draft. You review, approve, and the tenant receives it.
The monthly cycle is the shape of this, and it is the same every month.
Related
- StatementsA running account over time — everything charged, everything paid, and the balance. An invoice is one entry on it.
- Credit notesHow you correct an issued invoice. A credit note is a negative invoice that leaves the original standing.
- Charges and charge templatesA template is the reusable definition kept on the unit. A charge is a real line on one lease. Editing one never changes the other.
- Payments and allocationRecording what came in, and what it settles. A payment reduces a balance — it is not attached to one invoice.