Purchase invoice
When you receive a purchase invoice from your supplier, check the details carefully to make sure that no mistakes have been made. It is much easier to get an invoice corrected before payment is due.
A purchase invoice can be any receipt for goods or services, which also include rent and utility bills.
Payment of a purchase invoice
Try and pay your purchase invoices on time, if there is a problem with cash flow try and sort out a short term payment plan. If you always refuse to take supplier phone calls they are likely to take further action and maybe try and claim the money back through the county courts. If this were to happen, all the costs and interested incurred by your supplier would then need to be paid by you.
There are a few things you could do to try and delay payments of purchase invoices if cash flow is tight. The first is to only make payments when they have been requested from the supplier.
You could also introduce a cheque run date: such as once a week or once a month. Once you've set up a system, it will allow you to keep a better control on your finances and your suppliers would then know when they would be paid, and know not to expect a cheque the same day as their phone call.
Try and keep a good relationship with your suppliers: there is nothing worse than phoning up with an order only to find out that they will not ship any goods to you until payment is made for an outstanding purchase invoice or they will only offer you cash with order.
Supplier Statements
Your supplier should supply you with a monthly statement of account. Check to see if you have received all the purchase invoices and also to see if all payments that you have made have been posted correctly. If there are any discrepancies, contact them to try and get the problem sorted.
Credit notes
If you return goods or have agreed a credit with your supplier it is worth ensuring that the credit note has been issued before you pay the purchase invoice. It is sometimes much easier to get this sorted out before you make payment.
How can I record a purchase invoice in the accounts?
If you are operating a computerised accounts system then there will be a facility to enter the purchase invoice details in either supplier or purchase ledger. Post as much detail as you can: this will help if you need to trace an invoice, or find out how much a product costs when you reorder.
If you are running a manual system keep a list of all your purchase invoices received. You will need to record the following: Invoice Date, Supplier Name, Net Amount, VAT and Gross Amount. You may also require a short description in order to help you should you need to trace an invoice later on.
If you total these up each month it will inform you of your total purchases for the month.
Filing a purchase invoice
To make finding an invoice easier to find, the best way to file supplier invoices in alphabetical order and then by invoice number order. If you file the newest invoices on the top, this will ensure that they are the easiest to find.
Some accounts departments like to have two files for purchase invoices: one file for invoices paid and another for invoices outstanding.
It is a legal requirement to keep all your purchase invoices. All your accounts records need to be kept for a minimum of six years from the year end date.
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