Manage Customer Debit Note

This instruction explains how you accept a debit note and apply it to one or several customer invoices.

In this activity you deduct the debit note amount from the original invoice and. For information on how to proceed after that, refer to the Uses section below.

Note the term debit note is also used to refer to the deduction made.

Outcome

A customer payment with a debit note is allocated to at least one customer invoice and the deduction made by the customer is written off. An invoice record with the deducted amount is created with the selected debit note number.

An accounting journal, a customer payment journal, and a customer invoice journal (for the debit note record created) are printed.

If you accept the debit note, create a credit memo to close the outstanding transactions and to inform the customer about this.

If you do not accept the debit note, create a new invoice based on the debit note record and send it to the customer. You do this by using the bill back function in 'Payment Received. Record' (ARS110).

Accounts receivable, or accounts payable, and the general ledger are updated. The following account entries are created:

Accounting Rule Account Debit Credit
* Customer (amount recorded as full payment) x
Bank x
AR30–100** Customer (debit note deduction) x
* Customer (debit note record) x

* Account entry based on the original customer invoice.

** The AR30–100 account entry is only created if the debit note is allocated to a customer invoice.

The debit note and the original customer invoice are assigned information category numbers 218 and 219 respectively. Transaction information for the debit note can be reviewed in 'Accounts Receivable. Display Additional Information' (ARS250).

Before you start

  • The starting conditions listed in Adjusting Customer Payments must be met.
  • A customer payment with a debit note must be recorded in 'Payment Received. Record' (ARS110).
  • An adjustment due to a debit note creates a credit invoice record with a specific invoice number in the financial system. If the invoice number is not entered manually on (ARS110/I) during the process, number series type 52 under number series 2 must be entered in 'Number Series. Open' (CRS165).
  • If recorded debit notes are to be classified in categories based on reasons for the deductions, reason codes can be defined in advance in 'Debit Note. Open Reason' (ARS016).

Follow These Steps

Enter Debit Note

  1. Enter a payment directly on 'Payment Received. Record' (ARS110/E), using 'Journal Entry & Payment. Open' (GLS110/B), or in 'Payment Document. Enter' (ARS105).

  2. When the allocation panel (ARS110/F) is activated, enter the payer and/or select one of the following sorting orders to identify the invoice records, when necessary:

    • 1 = Payer
    • 2 = Customer
    • 3 = Invoice number
    • 4 = Quick entry
    • 5 = Group invoice
    • 6 = Sorted by due date.
  3. Select accounting option 16 = 'Debit note' for the invoice(s) to which the payment should be allocated or enter the same option in the Option field in the panel header; in the latter case, the amount left to distribute must be zero.

  4. On the I panel, review and change the proposed total invoice amount, if necessary.

  5. Enter the amount to be deducted from the customer invoice and the debit note number, if a separate number series does not exist.

    This can be the debit note number created by the customer or an internal number.

  6. Review and change any of the following proposed values: Total invoice amount, payer, customer number, date of invoice, due date, and the accounting string.

  7. Enter a voucher text and a transaction description (optional).

  8. If the debit note is to be categorized based on the reason for the deduction, enter a reason code in the 'Transaction description' field.

  9. Press Enter to return to panel F.

    The invoiced amount is reduced by the entered debit note amount and recorded according to the accounting option for debit notes. The deduction does not affect the amount left to distribute on the panel F header.

  10. Select option 1 = 'Full payment' for the invoice(s) to allocate the payment received.

Finish the Debit Note Processing

  1. Repeat the steps above until the entire total to be processed is allocated and adjusted.

  2. To end, press F3 to assign a voucher number to the voucher.