Recording an invoice

Three ways in: New from document on the expenses list, New invoice on the Expenses screen, or Generate Invoice from a purchase order.

Starting from the document

New from document on the expenses list takes the supplier’s invoice first — drop the PDF or a photo of it, then fill in the details.

The document is attached the moment you drop it, before you type anything. That is the whole point of starting this way: every other route attaches the file as a separate step afterwards, which is the step that gets skipped, and the attachment is the one thing you cannot reconstruct later.

Choose the job in the page header first — a document has to belong to one.

The supplier and a cost code are needed before it imports

Both are asked for on the form, and Save stays disabled until they are set. An expense with no supplier belongs to nobody, and one with no cost code reaches no budget — the job is quietly short by that invoice and nothing on screen says so.

Either pick one cost code for the whole invoice, or set one per line in the lines table. A line with neither is named, so you can see which still needs one.

Use this one when the invoice arrives by email

Save the attachment, drop it in, type the reference and date. The expense exists with its paperwork on it in under a minute, and you can code it to cost centres whenever you get to it.

You can capture a supplier credit note the same way — change Type in the form.

What it reads

The supplier’s reference, the date, the due date and the totals come off the document. So does the supplier — matched by ABN where you have one recorded, and otherwise by name, so “Porter Consulting Pty Ltd” on the letterhead finds “Porter Consulting” in your list.

The description is read from the lines, not the file name: a “Re:” or “Job:” line if the supplier prints one, otherwise the first charge under its section heading and a count of the rest — “Building Certification: Issue Building Approval for dwelling & pool (+7 more)”. Reword it if you like; it is a starting point.

Recording a supplier’s ABN pays for itself

A name can be written several ways; an ABN cannot. Add it once to a supplier and every future invoice from them is matched exactly, without anyone checking.

The lines

If the invoice quotes one of your purchase order numbers, SmarteBuild finds it, links the order, and creates the lines already coded to the same cost centres — using the invoice’s amounts, not the order’s. That matters on a progress claim, where the invoice is deliberately a fraction of the order.

If it does not quote one, the lines still come off the document with the right amounts, and you set the cost code on each one in the form before it imports — or pick a single cost code for the whole invoice.

Either way the lines are shown before you save so you can check the shape.

Ask suppliers to print your order number

It is the difference between an expense that codes itself and one you code by hand. Your purchase orders already ask for it — this is what it was asking for.

It gets better as you use it

Every line you code, or re-code, is remembered against that supplier’s wording — and a correction sticks, so a wrong suggestion is not offered again. The first invoice from a new supplier takes some tidying up; the tenth mostly codes itself.

Where the individual lines cannot be read confidently, it falls back to a single line for the invoice total rather than guessing at the breakdown. One line with the right money is easier to split than several with the wrong money.

The Expenses screen

It works like the Orders screen. On the left, every expense on the costing you are in, newest first, with its total including GST and marks for what needs attention: overdue, no document, reference used twice, credit note, and where it stands in Xero (In Xero, Paid). Filter by name, reference or supplier, by cost code, or to just the credit notes or just the ones not in Xero yet. The total at the bottom subtracts credit notes and leaves out anything in the trash.

Click an expense to open it on the right, across four tabs:

Tab	What it shows
Invoice	The details, the totals, where it stands in Xero, and who recorded it
Lines	What was bought, and which job and cost code each part is charged to
Document	The supplier’s invoice itself, beside the figures you typed from it
Files	Everything attached — upload, attach from the project, choose the default

The buttons above the tabs change the details, take the lines from an order, send it to Xero, and move it to the trash.

The fields

Field	What it is
Reference	The supplier’s invoice number, exactly as printed
Name	A few words saying what it is for
Invoice date	The date on the supplier’s invoice
Due date	When payment falls due — a week after the invoice date unless you change it
Supplier	Who sent it; choose the supplier list first, then search it
Related purchase order	The order it bills, if there is one
Note	Anything worth knowing later (on Details, once it exists)

Each line has its own:

Field	What it is
Job	The costing this part of the invoice is charged to
Cost code	Where on that job it lands — a real cost code, not a heading
Item / Product	The estimate item it pays for, or a one-off description
Quantity / Price	As charged by the supplier, price excluding GST
Includes GST	Tick it to type the price including GST; it is saved without it

Quantity and price take a sum as well as a figure — type =12*2.4 and the result is saved.

Use the supplier’s numbers exactly

Reference and Invoice date should be exactly what is on the supplier’s document, not your own reference or the date you entered it.

When you query an invoice, or when your bookkeeper reconciles a supplier statement, the supplier’s number is the only thing both sides share. A creative internal reference means every query starts with working out which invoice you mean.

The reference is checked against your other expenses as you type. Two suppliers can both number an invoice 1001, so a match is allowed — but you are asked before it is saved, because the usual reason is the same invoice being entered twice.

Attach the document

On the Files tab, Upload attaches the supplier’s invoice PDF or a photo of it. Attach from the project links a document that is already in the project instead.

Do it every time. The attached document is what settles the question when a supplier statement shows an invoice you have no record of, or when the same invoice arrives twice a month apart — which happens more often than you would expect.

The default document is the one the Document tab opens and the one sent to Xero with the bill. The first one you attach becomes the default; Make default changes it.

Attaching the PDF is the highest-value thirty seconds in this module

An expense with the source document attached can be verified by anyone, later, without asking the supplier for a copy. One without it relies on somebody’s memory of what was on it.

The fastest way in

Generate Invoice from the purchase order. The supplier, the items, the quantities and the values all come from the order, so entering the expense is a matter of adding the invoice number and date and correcting anything the supplier charged differently.

It also guarantees the expense is matched to the order, which is where the useful number comes from. See Matching to an order.

Already recorded the invoice? Lines from an order on the Expenses screen does the same for an existing one. It replaces every line with the order’s, and asks first if there are lines to lose.

Invoices with no order

Some legitimately have none — a small account purchase, a fee, something bought on the spot.

Record these against the costing and code them to the right cost code, so the cost lands in the right trade even though there is nothing to match against. Tick a one-off line when there is no estimate item to pick.

If you find yourself doing this often for the same kind of purchase, that is usually a sign the order should have been raised. Recurring unordered spend is exactly what the committed figure exists to catch.

Invoices spanning several jobs

A supplier delivering to three sites on one invoice is recorded once. Give each portion its own line, and choose that portion’s Job on the line. Each job’s budget then carries only its share, and the invoice itself — reference, total, document — stays in one place, matching what the supplier sent.

When an invoice’s lines are on more than one job, the Lines tab adds a Job column, so it is clear which part went where. Opening the job picker on a line shows the job it is already on; start typing to search for another.

Credit notes

Credit note on the list records a supplier credit. Type its lines as positive amounts — they are saved as credits and reduce the job’s cost, and its totals show negative. Link it to the invoice it credits, if there is one, so the list can show which one it reduces.

A credit note cannot take its lines from an order or from the estimate: those are things delivered, and a credit is things taken back.

Due dates

Due date drives what is coming up for payment. Filling it in is what makes the expenses list useful as a payables view rather than just a record of what has arrived — an expense past its due date and not paid in Xero is marked overdue.

Xero

Xero sends the expense to Xero as a draft bill (a credit note goes as a supplier credit), with its default document attached, and opens it in Xero once it has gone. The dialog lists the job, the cost codes and the supplier, and whether each is mapped to Xero — anything not mapped has a Map button that opens the Xero settings, and the export waits until everything is.

If the bill goes but its document does not attach, you are told so. Do not export again — the bill is already in Xero; attach the document there.

Once exported, the expense says so at the top. Changes made in SmarteBuild after that are not sent to Xero — change the bill there too. Disconnect from Xero forgets the link so it can be exported again; it does not delete anything in Xero, so void the old bill there first or you will have two.

To send several at once, use the expenses list instead — tick them and export the batch.

The point of exporting rather than re-keying is that the invoice reference and amount agree in both systems by construction. Where they are entered twice, they disagree eventually — and because they came from one entry, SmarteBuild can compare its total against Xero’s afterwards and tell you when they have drifted apart.

Trash

Trash takes an expense off the job’s cost without losing it — tick trashed in the list to see it again, and Restore puts it back. A trashed expense cannot be changed. Delete permanently is only offered from the trash, and removes its lines with it; its documents stay in the project.