--- title: How invoices work on Wholesale Handler Metadescription: How invoices work on Wholesale Handler - creating drafts, finalising and sending, payment tracking, bank checks, disputes and credit notes. Display description: An invoice is a priced record of what a customer owes you for one or more orders. Wholesale Handler creates it from the orders, you finalise and send, then both sides track payment together until it's marked paid. author: Dan Edwards author_role: Founder author_url: https://danedwardsdeveloper.com author_linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-edwards-developer published: 21-05-2026 --- # How invoices work on Wholesale Handler By **[Dan Edwards](https://wholesalehandler.com/about)**, Founder. An invoice is your formal demand for payment - the document that tells the customer "this is what you owe me, please pay it". In Wholesale Handler you build it from the orders the customer has already placed, finalise it, send it, and then both you and the customer track payment against it until it's marked paid. There's no separate "invoice book" to maintain. Invoices come straight out of the orders you've already accepted, with the line items and totals already in place. ## What is an invoice? An invoice is the document that demands payment. The orders themselves are records of what the customer bought (and at what price), but they're not in themselves a request for money - the invoice is. It's what you send when you're ready to be paid, and what the customer pays against. One invoice can cover a single order or bundle several orders together (a whole week's deliveries, say). Where a packing slip is the unpriced "what's in the crate" handed over with the delivery, the invoice is the priced "this is what you owe me" sent to settle the account. See [how packing slips work](/articles/how-packing-slips-work-on-wholesale-handler). Every invoice in Wholesale Handler shows: - Your business name, contact details and **Invoice information** text (bank details, payment instructions, anything you want on every invoice) - The customer's business name and contact name (snapshotted at send time so future edits to the customer's profile don't change historical invoices) - A unique reference like INV-2026-042 (per-merchant sequence) - The orders it covers, with their delivery dates - Every line item - quantity, pack size, unit price, line total, VAT - Any adjustments you've added (delivery charges, discounts, credits) - Subtotal, VAT total and grand total - Status (Draft, Sent, Customer declared paid, Paid, or Disputed) ## How do I create an invoice from an order? From the [Orders](/orders) list or an order's detail page, open the order's actions menu and click Create invoice.... Wholesale Handler opens the new-invoice form pre-populated with that order's line items, customer details and totals. Review, edit if you need to (you can add adjustment lines, tweak line items, set a payment reference), then Finalise & send... to send it - or save as a draft to come back to. Only orders that don't already belong to an invoice can be turned into one - once an order's on an invoice, it disappears from the "ready to invoice" pool. ## How do I create one invoice for several orders? From the [Orders](/orders) list, tick the orders you want to bundle. They must all be the same customer - you can't put orders from two different customers on one invoice. Once you've selected at least one, a **Create N invoices...** action appears - click it and Wholesale Handler builds a single draft invoice covering all the selected orders, with each order's line items listed in order of delivery date. This is the usual route for weekly invoicing - select every Monday-to-Friday order for a customer, create one invoice, send it on Friday afternoon. ## What's the difference between a draft and a sent invoice? A draft is editable. You can add or remove line items, add adjustments, update the payment reference, and tweak anything you want. Drafts don't have a reference number assigned yet and the customer can't see them. Once you click Finalise & send..., the invoice locks: - A reference (INV-2026-042) is assigned from your per-merchant sequence - Customer name and email are snapshotted onto the invoice - An email goes out to the customer with a link to view it - The status moves from Draft to Sent - Line items, totals and adjustments are frozen The only field you can still edit on a sent invoice is the payment reference - useful if you set up a new bank account or change the reference format mid-flow. ## How do invoice references work? References use the format INV-YYYY-NNN, where YYYY is the current year and NNN is a per-merchant counter that increments each time you send. Two different merchants on Wholesale Handler can both have an INV-2026-001 - the sequence is yours alone, not shared across the platform. The reference is assigned only when you finalise and send - drafts don't burn a number. ## What is the invoice information field? Free text that lands on every invoice you send - your bank details, payment terms, contact hours, returns policy, anything you'd otherwise hand-write or stamp. Set it under **Invoice information** in [Settings](/settings). There's a sensible default to give you the shape of it - replace it with whatever fits your business. There's also a Generate example invoice button there that builds a sample PDF from your most recent invoice, so you can see how your text lands on the page before you commit. Common things to include: - Bank account name, sort code and account number - Payment terms ("Payment due within 14 days") - A phone number or hours for queries about the invoice - Notes about late payment or credit terms The field is optional - leave it blank and the invoice just shows the line items and totals with no extra block. ## How does sending an invoice work? Click Finalise & send... from the draft. Wholesale Handler: 1. Assigns the next reference from your sequence 2. Snapshots the customer's name and email onto the invoice (so future profile edits don't rewrite history) 3. Emails the customer with a link to view the invoice 4. Moves the status to Sent From there, the customer sees the invoice in their own [Invoices](/invoices) list and can declare payment when they've sent the money. ## How does payment tracking work? Two paths, depending on whether the customer uses the "I've paid" button or you just mark it paid yourself: **Customer-led:** 1. Customer sends payment via bank transfer (or whatever method you've agreed) 2. Customer clicks I've paid... on their copy of the invoice - status moves to "Customer declared paid" 3. You check your bank, see the money's arrived, click Mark as paid... - status moves to Paid **Merchant-led:** 1. Customer pays (no button click on their side) 2. You check your bank, click Mark as paid... on the invoice - status moves straight to Paid Either way, marking as paid is the final state - the invoice and the orders it covers are now closed. ## What does Record bank check do? The Record bank check button on an invoice logs the fact that you've looked at your bank account and checked whether this invoice has been paid. It doesn't change the invoice status - it just leaves a timestamped event on the invoice's history. Use it when you've checked the bank, the money's not in yet, and you want to record "checked on Friday, not yet arrived" so you don't forget you've already looked. The next time you open the invoice, you'll see when you last checked. ## What happens if I can't reconcile a customer's declared payment? If a customer marks an invoice as "I've paid..." but the money doesn't arrive (wrong amount, wrong reference, wrong account, or just never sent), click Dispute declaration.... Wholesale Handler: - Emails the customer to let them know you couldn't reconcile their declaration - Logs the dispute as an event on the invoice - Reverts the customer-visible status so they're prompted to check and re-declare On your side, the invoice keeps the dispute event in its history. Once the customer fixes the payment or re-declares, the normal payment flow resumes. ## Can I add adjustments to a draft? Yes. On a draft invoice, click Add adjustment to add a one-off adjustment line - a delivery charge, a goodwill credit, a discount, a deposit deduction. Adjustments can be positive or negative, and they flow into the subtotal and VAT calculations. Common uses: - Delivery fee that varies per order - Discount for paying early - Credit for a previous over-supply - Deposit already paid being deducted ## Can I edit an invoice after sending? Mostly no - sent invoices are frozen so the customer's copy stays in sync with yours. The exception is the payment reference: click Update payment reference... to change it without unsending or re-issuing. Useful if you switched banks, or want to add an order number to the reference for reconciliation. Customer name and email are snapshotted at send time, so editing the customer's profile later won't change the invoice. If a sent invoice was genuinely wrong (wrong line items, wrong totals), the right move is to issue a credit note rather than edit it - the audit trail stays intact. ## How do customers see their invoices? Customers have their own [Invoices](/invoices) page when they log in - they see only their own invoices, with the same line items, totals and status they'd see on a paper bill. They can click into any invoice for full detail and use I've paid... to declare payment when the money's been sent. They don't have a create/send flow - invoices are merchant-driven only. Customers can't edit, delete or dispute on their side; their only action is declaring payment. ## Can I delete an invoice? A draft can be deleted - it hasn't been sent, no reference has been burned, no customer's seen it. Sent invoices stay on the record permanently so the audit trail is intact - if a sent invoice was wrong, issue a credit note rather than deleting. ## How is an invoice different from a packing slip? The two answer different questions: - **Invoice** The priced document. Answers "how much does this customer owe me?". Goes out by email when you finalise and send, lives in both your and the customer's [Invoices](/invoices) list until paid. - **Packing slip** The unpriced document. Answers "what goes in this customer's crate?". Generates as a PDF on demand, goes out with the physical delivery, doesn't track payment. A typical week: customer's orders come in across Monday-Friday, you print packing slips daily for the deliveries, and at the end of the week you bundle the orders into one invoice and send it. See [how packing slips work](/articles/how-packing-slips-work-on-wholesale-handler). ## What about automatic invoicing? Right now invoicing is fully merchant-driven - you decide when to bundle orders into an invoice and when to send it. Automatic per-customer invoicing (set a billing day per customer, cron picks up uninvoiced orders and creates drafts on that schedule) is in design but not live yet. ## How Wholesale Handler handles invoices Invoices are built from your orders - you don't enter customer details or line items twice, the invoice form starts with everything filled in. Drafts are editable, sent invoices are frozen, and the customer sees their own copy in their own [Invoices](/invoices) page. The **Invoice information** field is the only standing text attached to invoices - everything else comes from the orders themselves. Edit it once and every invoice you send from then on picks it up; generate an example invoice directly from the settings card to see how it lands before you rely on it for a real customer. Payment tracking is two-sided: the customer can declare payment with I've paid... when they've sent the money, you confirm with Mark as paid... when you've seen it arrive. If the two don't reconcile, Dispute declaration... kicks the conversation back to the customer with an email. Record bank check is the audit trail in between - "I looked, it's not in yet". There's no separate accounts package to sync with, no double-entry bookkeeping to maintain, and no manual sequence numbering - the invoice reference, the customer snapshot, the totals and the audit trail are all handled for you. You decide when to send and when to mark paid; Wholesale Handler does the rest. ## Q&A **Q: What is an invoice?** A: An invoice is the priced document that demands payment - your formal "this is what you owe me" sent to the customer once the orders have been delivered. In Wholesale Handler one invoice can cover a single order or bundle several orders together (a whole week's deliveries, say), pulling line items and totals straight from the orders themselves. **Q: What's the difference between a draft and a sent invoice?** A: A draft is editable - you can add and remove line items, add adjustments and tweak the payment reference - and the customer can't see it. Once you finalise and send, the invoice locks: a reference is assigned, customer details are snapshotted, an email goes out, and line items and totals are frozen. The only field still editable on a sent invoice is the payment reference. **Q: How does payment tracking work?** A: Two paths. Customer-led: the customer sends payment, clicks "I've paid..." on their copy, you check the bank and click "Mark as paid..." to confirm. Merchant-led: the customer just pays and you click "Mark as paid..." yourself. Either way, marking as paid is the final state - the invoice and the orders it covers are closed. **Q: Can I edit an invoice after sending?** A: Mostly no - sent invoices are frozen so the customer's copy stays in sync with yours. The only exception is the payment reference, which you can change without unsending or re-issuing. If a sent invoice was genuinely wrong, the right move is a credit note rather than an edit, so the audit trail stays intact. **Q: How is an invoice different from a packing slip?** A: An invoice is the priced document - it answers "how much does this customer owe me?", goes out by email when you finalise and send, and tracks payment until it's marked paid. A packing slip is the unpriced document that goes out with the physical delivery to confirm what's in the crate. The invoice settles the account; the packing slip confirms the goods.