If you’ve sent a purchase order to a vendor, they’ll send you the materials plus an invoice to let you know how much you owe them. Or, you may have made purchases without a purchase order. These might be hotel stays, meals, or items that you’ve bought in a store, perhaps on a credit card.
If the invoice is for a purchase order, you can populate the invoice directly from the purchase order. If not, you can enter the amounts manually.
To record an invoice, navigate to [a] Payables, then [i] Invoice Entry.

The list screen has filters to allow you to search for an existing A/P invoice.

A/P Invoice Details
Click on the Details tab to add or update an A/P invoice.

To add a new invoice, click on the Details tab and select the Add action.

Invoices are directed at vendors, and for vendor there can be any number of invoices. Each invoice will have one or more line items. On this screen, we’ll be adding each line item separately, so for the key, enter the vendor, invoice number, and the line item.
A/P Invoice Actions
Inquire
The inquire action lets you view, but not change, an invoice by entering the vendor code, invoice number and item.
Add
Add a new invoice. This can be an invoice that’s new to the system, or a purchase order that’s being redeemed.
Change
Change an invoice item that has not been costed or paid. If the invoice item has been populated from a Purchase Order any changes to the invoice item must not reflect a greater outstanding ordered quantity or net outstanding then is available on the Purchase Order item.
Delete
Delete an invoice that has not been costed or paid. This action may be used on un-costed or unpaid invoices even if they have been populated from a P/O. The Delete action will reset the Purchase Order.
Find
This action will bring a drop down of invoices matching the invoice number entered. Clicking on the highlighted entry in the drop down will populate the detail tab with the chosen invoice.
Renumber
Renumber an existing invoice number to a new number within the same vendor. The new number cannot already exist for the vendor.
Unattach
If an invoice has been costed it can’t be deleted. If the invoice redeemed the wrong purchase order, you can use this action to detach the invoice from the purchase order. The P/O will then show as unredeemed.
While costed invoices can’t be deleted, they can be reversed. This sets the job costing and G/L back to the state it was before the invoice was posted. If you wish to reverse the now ‘unattached’ invoice you need to create a credit invoice. The unattach action may not be used on P/O items that are on History.
Invoices for Purchase Orders
If you are creating an invoice based on a purchase order you sent out, enter the vendor for that purchase order. The purchase order from our previous lesson is available in the P/O number drop-down box.

The P/O item field prompts you for the line item from the purchase order.

If you select the ‘+ All items’, Abio will create as many invoice line items as needed to import the purchase order. You’ll be prompted before the invoice items are created.

The invoice details are populated from the purchase order and the last item is displayed.

Because this invoice is tied to the purchase order, the quantity invoiced will be recorded on the purchase order. This ensures the purchase order isn’t redeemed twice. To check the status of the purchase order, you can click on the P/O item field.

The invoiced column shows the amounts invoiced.

Invoices for Other Purchases
There are other costs that won’t necessarily be purchased through a purchase order. Living out expenses and small purchases can be entered independently of purchase orders. When you use the Add action, you can either specify a purchase order without a p/o item, or you can leave the purchase order blank.
If you specify a purchase order without an item, Abio recognizes that this purchase order may originate outside of Abio, perhaps a client issued the purchase order for you, and you just want a record of the number.
If there’s a P/O item specified, the fields are populated from the purchase order and can’t be changed. If no p/o item specified, you are able to enter any values you want in the invoice fields.
Fields for A/P Invoice

vendor
is a key field and may not be modified – it must be a valid vendor – attempting to tab through this field without entering data will bring a drop down list of valid vendors.
invoice number
must be entered and unique within the vendor. A message will be displayed if the invoice number is associated to another invoice record within the same vendor, this check is across all companies.
item number
must be entered and unique to the specific vendor and invoice. The system will populate the next available item number in the sequence.
date
– YYYY.MM.DD – must be valid date within the last year or next 30 days.
General Ledger YYYYMM
– this field will default to the current General Ledger period for this set of books and should not be modified. If required, the field may be modified to a future G/L period (up to 2 months ahead) but may not be set to a previous G/L period. A check is made against the invoice date and a warning is issued if the General Ledger period is not for the date entered. This is just a warning and if the General Ledger YYYYMM entered is in advance of the actual General Ledger period you can continue.
restrict
– must be ‘Y’es or ‘N’o – used in conjunction with users_access_retricted_flag to exclude users from this invoice record. If this option is set to ‘Y’es only those users set to ‘privileged’ from the T/B User Entry option will be allowed access to that vendor’s information.

Purchase Order number and Purchase Order item
– there are 3 different scenarios when posting invoice items:
- No Purchase Order number: Not all invoices are issued in response to a purchase order. If this is a purchase that was made on the fly leave the purchase order number blank.
- Purchase Order number with no Purchase Order item number: This covers the situation where a purchase order has been issued but not recorded in Abio. You may still want the purchase order number for your records. If you use the <tab> key to leave the field you won’t be forced to select a purchase order from the dropdown.
- Purchase Order number and Purchase Order item number: Specify a purchase item when the purchase order has been entered in Abio. The invoice will populate with details from the purchase order. When you convert a purchase order to an invoice Abio will take that amount out of the job’s committed costs and add them to actual costs.

employee number
– invoices may be associated with employees to record Accounts Payables payments on behalf of the employee.
Where the employee is not associated with the current vendor the purchase is treated as an employee purchase subject to repayment. The General Ledger account will default to the control account for ‘P/R misc deduction’ and an entry will be added to the employee Purchase/Repayment Table. Employees who have outstanding purchases may have these amounts repaid.
Employees that are associated with the vendor (the vendor record is mapped to the employee record) like RRSP providers or subcontract welding companies, do not create entries in the Employee Purchase/Repayment table. Accounts Payable activity for these employees is created automatically from transacting the payroll. A non-blank ‘employee’ field causes the gross invoice amount to be added to the employee record ‘Accounts Payable payments’ during General Ledger and J/C transactions.
job, area and centre
– if this invoice is to be processed against a General Ledger account or piece of equipment the job, area and centre are not applicable. If the invoice is to be processed against a job, area and centre then entries to these fields must be valid – you can get the drop down list containing valid jobs to appear by entering any character in the job field and attempting to tab to the next field – when a valid job is entered a drop down list for valid areas and centres will appear by attempting to tab through these fields.
job equipment
– this field will is only available if a job, area and centre have been entered, this field allows posting to both a job and an equipment unit, the costing stays with the job. this field is for reporting purposes only and allows tracking of job-related equipment costs
equipment
– If no employee number or job number is entered the equipment field will be available – an entry in this field must be valid equipment – to receive a drop down list of valid equipment enter any character in the field and then attempt to tab through it.
cost type
–for invoice items posted to a job this field is initially pulled from the vendor record– if the cost type is not appropriate it will be changed to one that is. If the invoice item has been posted to a job the cost type must be valid to the centre entered and one of:
- ‘L’abour
- ‘M’aterial
- ‘E’quipment
- ‘S’ubcontract
If the invoice item has been posted to equipment the cost type must be one of:
- ‘R’epair
- ‘M’ob /demob
- ‘F’uel
- ‘O’ther
- ‘P’urchase
rent?
– if you have entered a job, area and centre on this invoice this field must be one of ‘Y’es – equipment is rented or ‘N’o.
General Ledger account –
If an employee number has been entered on the invoice this field will be populated by the system to the control account for ‘P/R misc deductions’. If a job, area and centre or equipment number have been entered the General Ledger account number will be populated by the system with the appropriate account based on the cost type entered. If none of the above are entered the G/L Account must be entered. Attempting to tab through this field will bring up a list of current G/L Account Numbers. Only users with ‘post to control account’ flag = Yes in User Entry will be allowed to post to control accounts.
division
– This field allows reporting by division. To bring up a drop down list containing valid divisions enter any character in the field and attempt to tab to the next field. If only one division is associated with the G/L account entered in this set of books the division will be populated by the system.

trainee
–this field is available when a G/L account with the training flag set to Yes in Cross Company Accounts has been entered. Must be a valid employee number. Attempting to tab through this field will bring a drop down list of valid employee numbers.
owner PST?
– indicates whether the invoice item is PST exempt to the owner. This value has no significance to automatically maintained PST liabilities, it is used as a flag for reporting only.

description
– this field must be entered – up to 25 characters.

quantity
Number of units .
rate
Cost of each unit.
unit
This field must be entered – it is the measurement of the invoiced item (such as LS, EA or BAG)
tax
Must be one of:
- ‘N’o tax
- ‘G’ST only’
- ‘P’ST and GST
- ‘H’ST
- ‘+P’ – implies that the quantity times rate includes both PST and GST
- ‘+G’ – implies that the quantity times rate includes GST
- ‘+H’ i- implies that the quantity times rate includes GST
- ‘A’ll – will bring a drop down list of all provinces and their applicable taxes.
For instance, an invoice item is for 1,050.00 and includes 50.00 of GST. The quantity could be specified as 1, rate as 1,050 and tax as ‘+G’. The result of that posting would be that the rate would become 1,000 and the GST would be set to 50. Another way of posting this item would be to set the quantity to 1, rate to 1,000 and tax to ‘G’.
holdback %
Must be between 0 and 100 with blank equivalent to zero. Holdback is applied to the net portion plus any PST. This amount is held back from the client until it is released at the end of the project.

extension
Rate x quantity. This is shown for the individual line item and for the
hst, gst and pst amounts
The tax percentages are taken from the General Ledger Company table for non-job related invoice items. If the invoice item is job-related the tax items are taken from the province table associated with the specified job. These fields are system generated.

net amt
The total net amount of the invoice item including applicable taxes– system generated.
holdback amt
The holdback amt on the invoice item – system generated and related to the holdback % entered for the invoice.

net out – total net amount of the invoice item including applicable taxes that have been costed. – system generated.
holdback out – amount of the holdback on the item that has been costed – system generated.

cheque number
The cheque number generated to pay this invoice.
manual form
If this invoice was paid from the company cheque book as opposed to being generated out of Abio, the manual form number will be recorded here.

extracted – extracted date – system generated.
extract ref – extracted reference number – system generated.

costed?
A ‘Y’es in this field indicates the invoice has been transacted.
cost date, cost time
The date the invoice was costed – system generated.
daysheet
Which daysheet this invoice was reported on.

snapshot
The date the invoice was applied to snapshot data. Invoice items may be applied to snapshot data when posted to jobs that are within a snapshot period. For users that have snapshot access, such postings are queried on an item-by-item basis as to whether the posting should update snapshot costs. If they are to update snapshot costs, the update is immediate and does not wait for an A/P – J/C & General Ledger transaction cycle.
Supporting Documents
You may want to save a copy of the paper invoice or receipt that came with this invoice. Or, perhaps this invoice was added from the web app, and the field user uploaded their receipt.
The interface for uploading documents is consistent across all the entry screens that allow it. You can get a more detailed overview on the process here.
Books
In other courses, we’ve talked about how Abio lets you divide a large job between several subsidiary companies. If you are using this approach, you might need some help tracking down which subsidiary company recorded a specific invoice. On this tab, you can enter an invoice number and see a list of all the companies and vendors for that invoice number.
Abio warns you if you enter an invoice number that has already been entered in another set of books.

You can go to the Books tab to get more information about where this invoice has been used.
