Automate Invoicing Processes with Steelhead's ERP - October Masterclass
Steelhead's invoicing tools link sales orders to parts, automate packing slip creation, and manage payment terms, streamlining workflows and ensuring accurate billing.
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Masterclass
October Masterclass: Invoicing
Identity & metadata
Video title
October Masterclass: Invoicing
Date published
October 28, 2024
Duration
29:53
Video type
Masterclass / Webinar
Audience
Accounting; billing and office staff; admin
Video summary
In one sentence
Steelhead's invoicing screen mirrors your sales order lines exactly, so this masterclass walks through the
four statuses that matter most (ready to invoice, parts ready to invoice, paid to ship,
and cannot invoice parts), why parts land on the "cannot invoice" tab and how to
clear them, and closes with live Q&A on payment terms, shipments, voided invoices, and closing
out old sales orders.
four statuses that matter most (ready to invoice, parts ready to invoice, paid to ship,
and cannot invoice parts), why parts land on the "cannot invoice" tab and how to
clear them, and closes with live Q&A on payment terms, shipments, voided invoices, and closing
out old sales orders.
What this video covers
Steelhead's Mary Jane Ha covers four invoicing topics chosen from customer questions. First, how a
sales order line and its line items (and their part associations) determine exactly what shows
up on the invoice, including lines with no attached parts (like shipping) and GL-code splits
for accounting sync.
Second, the invoicing status filters: open, partially closed, parts received, all, ready to invoice (dollar
amount ready) vs. parts ready to invoice (based on where parts sit in the process),
and paid to ship (cash-on-delivery terms), including why a sales order might not appear under
one filter but would under another.
Third, how invoicing by part group keeps multi-group work orders organized — creating an invoice
for one group marks it done so it won't reappear, while linking parts to an
invoice (or not) determines whether a line auto-closes.
Fourth, the Cannot Invoice Parts tab: parts land there either because an invoice was created
without linking parts (fixed by completing the parts on the work order) or because parts
kept moving after they were already invoiced (also fixed by completing them) — and removing
the invoicing node entirely is an option for shops that don't want that gate.
The back half is extensive live Q&A covering payment-required-before-shipping terms, using a shipment to batch-move
packing slips into invoicing, why sales orders stay separate even within a shipment, recreating (not
restoring) a voided invoice, cleaning up old sales orders/work orders that were invoiced but never
closed, and filtering invoices by sync or email status.
sales order line and its line items (and their part associations) determine exactly what shows
up on the invoice, including lines with no attached parts (like shipping) and GL-code splits
for accounting sync.
Second, the invoicing status filters: open, partially closed, parts received, all, ready to invoice (dollar
amount ready) vs. parts ready to invoice (based on where parts sit in the process),
and paid to ship (cash-on-delivery terms), including why a sales order might not appear under
one filter but would under another.
Third, how invoicing by part group keeps multi-group work orders organized — creating an invoice
for one group marks it done so it won't reappear, while linking parts to an
invoice (or not) determines whether a line auto-closes.
Fourth, the Cannot Invoice Parts tab: parts land there either because an invoice was created
without linking parts (fixed by completing the parts on the work order) or because parts
kept moving after they were already invoiced (also fixed by completing them) — and removing
the invoicing node entirely is an option for shops that don't want that gate.
The back half is extensive live Q&A covering payment-required-before-shipping terms, using a shipment to batch-move
packing slips into invoicing, why sales orders stay separate even within a shipment, recreating (not
restoring) a voided invoice, cleaning up old sales orders/work orders that were invoiced but never
closed, and filtering invoices by sync or email status.
Problem it solves
Invoicing confusion almost always traces back to how the sales order was entered, which status
filter you're using, or parts that got stuck between production and billing. Understanding how sales
order lines drive invoice lines, what each invoicing status filter actually means, and why parts
land on the Cannot Invoice Parts tab lets teams fix the root cause instead of
re-entering data or guessing at workarounds.
filter you're using, or parts that got stuck between production and billing. Understanding how sales
order lines drive invoice lines, what each invoicing status filter actually means, and why parts
land on the Cannot Invoice Parts tab lets teams fix the root cause instead of
re-entering data or guessing at workarounds.
Key capabilities shown
• Sales order lines and line items directly determine what appears on the invoice
• Lines with no attached parts (e.g., shipping) invoice independently of part status
• Line items split revenue by GL code for accounting sync
• Invoicing status filters: open, partially closed, parts received, all
• Ready to invoice (dollar amount) vs. parts ready to invoice (based on process step)
• Paid to ship status for cash-on-delivery sales orders, with a shipping-dashboard warning
• Part groups on a work order tracked as separate part associations on the same line
• Creating an invoice for one part group marks it done so it won't reappear
• Cannot Invoice Parts tab for parts stuck at the invoicing node, with two common causes
and fixes
• Option to remove the invoicing node entirely for shops that don't need that gate
• Creating a shipment to batch-move and complete multiple packing slips into invoicing at once
• Invoicing terms configuration (cash on delivery / payment required to ship)
• Voiding an invoice requires recreating it — there's no restore
• Filtering invoices by sync status and email (sent/unsent) status from View All Invoices
• Lines with no attached parts (e.g., shipping) invoice independently of part status
• Line items split revenue by GL code for accounting sync
• Invoicing status filters: open, partially closed, parts received, all
• Ready to invoice (dollar amount) vs. parts ready to invoice (based on process step)
• Paid to ship status for cash-on-delivery sales orders, with a shipping-dashboard warning
• Part groups on a work order tracked as separate part associations on the same line
• Creating an invoice for one part group marks it done so it won't reappear
• Cannot Invoice Parts tab for parts stuck at the invoicing node, with two common causes
and fixes
• Option to remove the invoicing node entirely for shops that don't need that gate
• Creating a shipment to batch-move and complete multiple packing slips into invoicing at once
• Invoicing terms configuration (cash on delivery / payment required to ship)
• Voiding an invoice requires recreating it — there's no restore
• Filtering invoices by sync status and email (sent/unsent) status from View All Invoices
How the demo flows
• Opens a sales order to show how a line and its associations map to the
invoice
• Shows a shipping line with no attached parts as an example
• Walks through each invoicing status filter, opening sales orders to illustrate the difference
• Opens a multi-group work order to show part associations under one sales order line
• Creates an invoice for one part group, showing it disappears from the ready list once
done
• Opens the Cannot Invoice Parts tab and explains both causes and their fixes via the
work order
• Explains the option to remove the invoicing node
• Opens Q&A: invoicing terms setup, creating a shipment to batch-move packing slips
• Demonstrates Create/Transfer Shipment and completing packing slips within it
• Covers voided invoices, cleaning up old open sales orders/work orders, and invoice filtering by sync/email
status
invoice
• Shows a shipping line with no attached parts as an example
• Walks through each invoicing status filter, opening sales orders to illustrate the difference
• Opens a multi-group work order to show part associations under one sales order line
• Creates an invoice for one part group, showing it disappears from the ready list once
done
• Opens the Cannot Invoice Parts tab and explains both causes and their fixes via the
work order
• Explains the option to remove the invoicing node
• Opens Q&A: invoicing terms setup, creating a shipment to batch-move packing slips
• Demonstrates Create/Transfer Shipment and completing packing slips within it
• Covers voided invoices, cleaning up old open sales orders/work orders, and invoice filtering by sync/email
status
Full transcript
Speaker
Mary Jane Ha, Steelhead, with live audience Q&A
Transcript
[00:04] All right, I think we're getting everybody joined here.
[00:10] So let's see. Okay. Yep.
[00:13] So it looks like we got majority of you in here.
[00:15] So hello everybody.
[00:16] Welcome to this month Steelhead Masterclass.
[00:18] It is on invoicing and it is with Mary Jane Ha.
[00:22] And she'll go over some of those points that we had in our updates.
[00:29] Hello everybody. Can everybody hear me okay?
[00:33] Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes. Perfect.
[00:37] Perfect. So we had picked out four topics on invoicing to cover.
[00:40] We know there's a lot with invoicing, but these were some things that we did
get a bit of questions about.
[00:45] So I'm just gonna dive right in.
[00:47] You should all be seeing my Steelhead home screen.
[00:52] Okay, perfect.
[00:55] So first thing we're gonna cover is how your sales order lines are.
[00:59] Your invoice lines. So if you're get to invoicing and you go to create an
invoice and your line is not what you expect it to be, it's because when
you entered the order in your sales order, it wasn't put in the correct way.
[01:13] [opens a sales order to show a sales order line] So if I go into a sales order here, this sales order line, this is
exactly what's gonna show up in your invoicing page.
[01:23] So I can show you that here.
[01:36] So you're gonna have your line and your line items.
[01:40] So your sales order line is basically the description of how you are invoicing for
the parts that are on that line.
[01:46] And then the association here is linking it to the actual parts that you are
invoicing for.
[01:54] [shows a sales order line with no parts] So you can have, if I go back into the sales order, you can have
sales order lines underneath this, like for shipping that don't have any parts on them.
[02:10] You can have multiple line items here, which is basically a breakdown of how you're
charging for the part.
[02:17] This is generally intended for internal use.
[02:20] So you can break down where that revenue is coming from 'cause each product can
be assigned to a GL code.
[02:25] And then that will be split up when your invoice does get synced over to
your accounting software.
[02:37] So as long as your sales order looks good, your invoice is gonna look good.
[02:42] And then in invoicing we have a couple of different statuses here that you can
filter by.
[02:50] So I'm just gonna go through these to make sure that everyone gets them.
[02:55] [opens a sales order to show status] So open sales orders would be any sales order that has a status of open,
which you can tell if you go into a sales order page or into any
sales order.
[03:04] And it will be right here.
[03:07] So anyone that's open is gonna automatically show up in your invoicing.
[03:13] Partially closed would be a sales order that has multiple lines and at least one
of them is closed or has been invoiced for or not.
[03:20] So you can close the line without invoicing for it.
[03:23] Parts received would be, parts are on a work order.
[03:27] So you have active parts in process and then you can filter by all.
[03:31] You can go look at all your sales order lines, sales orders that are closed,
that have already been invoiced for or haven't been, if you need to.
[03:42] And then the big ones that we mostly use here would be ready to invoice
and parts ready to invoice.
[03:49] So the difference between these two is ready to invoice is the dollar amount that
is ready to invoice.
[03:59] Whereas parts ready to invoice is purely based on where your parts are in the
process, if they're at your invoicing node or past it.
[04:10] [opens a sales order filtered by parts ready to invoice] So let me find my, If I go here, this sales order just got one
line and it's got parts and all of these parts are at the ready to
invoicing node if I go into my work order here.
[04:36] So all parts are at the last step ready to be invoiced and they're attached
to a line that is open.
[04:45] But here you can also have your shipping line here that is not associated to
any parts 'cause you're just billing that for the sales order completely.
[04:56] It's not attached to any parts that will always be ready to invoice 'cause you
can invoice for it at any time.
[05:03] So this invoice, or this sales order is not gonna show up as ready to
invoice if I'm only filtering by parts ready to invoice, because the parts associated to
the first line on that sales order were not at the invoicing step.
[05:27] And your pay to ship would show up every single sales order that has cash
on delivery terms if they're set up for payment required before shipping.
[05:40] And that warning will also show up on your shipping dashboard to say payment is
required before you go to create that packing slip.
[05:58] All right.
[06:03] [opens a work order to show part groups] And then if we go here, so if I have a, I'm actually gonna show
you what this work order looks like first.
[06:20] So if you have a work order that's got one part number that's on one
sales line that's got many groups and all of these groups are at different parts
on the tree, each of these groups is considered a different part account, which is
why it'll list each group underneath that line as a part association.
[06:41] [opens the invoicing screen showing parts ready to invoice] So back here we can see that this pops up automatically at 25 that's ready
to invoice.
[06:51] So these are the only ones that are at invoicing.
[06:53] And I'm just linking that this invoice belongs to these parts.
[06:59] And when I create this invoice, it won't automatically close the sales order line here
because I still have all of these parts that I haven't invoiced for.
[07:10] So your association just links the actual parts that you're processing to the line that
you're billing, and then you can track and make sure that your invoice belongs to
the right packing slip or the same part group.
[07:23] [creates an invoice for one part group] And then your parts done invoicing are basically like the function of that is so
that when you click this, so for group number six and I create this invoice,
our internet's been a little slow here so I apologize for the wait, but after
I create this for group six and I go back in and I wanna create
another invoice for the same line for one of the other groups, that group number
six is not gonna show up anymore 'cause it's considered done, which is helpful if
you're invoicing by packing slip so that you're not, so that you don't have two
invoices assigned to the same parts.
[08:18] So it's the same part number but a different part group.
[08:20] So it keeps them separate and then you can track them a little easier and
make sure you're invoicing for the right pieces.
[08:28] But it really cleans up this page when you've got one work order that's got
a bunch of accounts.
[08:38] And then if you have, and then the last thing we wanted to go over
was this cannot invoice parts tab.
[08:54] So these parts, parts will only show up here if you have parts that are
stuck at an invoicing node and for some reason they cannot be invoiced.
[09:04] So that's for one of two reasons.
[09:05] One, you created an invoice for a part but did not associate the parts to
that invoice, and then your sales order closes, but your parts are still active.
[09:19] So they would show up here.
[09:23] And then to fix that we would go into the work order because your invoice
is still gonna look correct, it's still gonna have the two parts that it's invoicing
for based on your sales line.
[09:34] It just didn't link the parts to them.
[09:37] So to get this to be removed from this page, you can go into your
work order and complete the parts.
[09:48] And then the same thing for the other one that was here.
[09:56] The other reason parts would show up here, even if they are associated to an
invoice, would be if I am here, if my parts, maybe I made an invoice,
I created the invoice for these parts when they were up here in final inspection
instead of waiting till they were in invoicing.
[10:14] So I made the invoice, I associated the parts, I hit done invoicing, and then
my guys continued to move the parts to invoicing.
[10:21] But now that they're at invoicing, there's nothing left for them to do because they've
already been invoiced.
[10:26] So at this point you would just complete your parts.
[10:32] So if this, so the point of an invoicing node would be if you do
not wanna complete your work order until you've already created the invoice for it, or
even, or if you have a lot of parts that are getting stuck in these
scenarios but you've already invoiced for them, the option would be to remove your invoicing
node.
[10:58] 'Cause then the parts would still show up as ready to invoice if they get
completed.
[11:03] So your filters for your sales orders would still be correct even if you didn't
have an invoicing node.
[11:09] But this is a good place to look if you got parts here and you're
like, why aren't they being completed or am I invoicing for the right things?
[11:22] So those were the main points that I wanted to cover and I think I
might talk a little faster than I anticipated.
[11:30] So now we have a lot of time for questions or if there's anything else
that you'd like me to dig into.
[11:56] Good morning everyone. Good morning.
[12:00] Hi, this is Nancy at Avon. Hi. Hi.
[12:05] I do have a question on the invoicing part of it under status.
[12:12] Okay. Paid to ship.
[12:17] So I know we do have COD customers all the time.
[12:25] Can you explain that a little bit because I go to that tab and there's
nothing in there.
[12:30] Sure. So what brings something into here?
[12:35] So this would be based on your invoicing terms.
[12:38] It looks like Sue had a similar question.
[12:41] [opens invoicing terms] If you go to view all invoices and then into your invoicing terms, you can
select your cash on delivery, or you can create a new term that says is
payment required to ship, and then it would show up if you have any sales
orders that have this term attached to them.
[12:58] [edits a sales order's payment terms] So here, that would be when you create your sales order, or you can edit
a sales order that already exists, but you can edit the terms if you already
have terms that would be cash on delivery that you'd like to use for this.
[13:15] And you can just edit that to say, hey, yes, I wanna check this.
[13:21] So, and of course now that I need one, I don't see one, but let's
see, because if I'm not mistaken, I think the sales order or, okay, so if
I enter a customer today, ABC, and on the customer file I click COD, is
that it?
[13:56] Or I still need to do, You would still have to go into your invoicing
terms and make sure that COD is checked as is payment required to ship.
[14:09] Okay. And how do I access the invoice terms again?
[14:15] [opens View All Invoices to find invoice terms] From invoicing, go to view all invoices up here.
[14:21] Okay. And then invoice terms is right on the top in the same spot.
[14:25] Invoice terms.
[14:28] [edits the COD term and saves] Okay. So then I see the COD here and then I'm gonna edit it and
put this payment required for shipping.
[14:37] I'm gonna click that save.
[14:43] Okay, now I see that. Yes in there.
[14:46] So that's it. Then COD customers then will prompt when front desk is trying to
create a packing slip.
[14:56] Yep. So it won't stop them from creating a packing slip, but it will give
them this warning that payment is required.
[15:03] Oh nice. Okay. I like it. Perfect.
[15:08] Okay. Okay.
[15:11] That's good. Okay.
[15:14] That was my only question so far.
[15:21] And hi Elizabeth, nice to meet you.
[15:25] Hi Nancy, how are you? Good, good and you?
[15:29] Good, good, good.
[15:31] I'll probably calling you in a little bit or later so.
[15:35] Okay, sounds good.
[15:37] Thank you. And hi Ashley, I met you before.
[15:44] Hello there. Hello.
[15:45] Hi. And thank you Mary Jane.
[15:50] But yeah, it's, I know I have another few questions but that's not so much
for invoicing so I know this class is for that.
[16:02] So I will address those later.
[16:04] Okay.
[16:14] And also if you hover over any of these, it will tell you exactly more
information on them, and then this dialogue is also very helpful.
[16:25] Okay. Perfect.
[16:44] Hello? Hello.
[16:47] Hi, this is Ben with Twin City Plating.
[16:50] We have a question when orders go from the shipping node to the invoicing node,
if you go to like your shipping page, and the packing slip sign box in
the bottom right, we, throughout the day, I mean that will fill up throughout the
day and we'll have hundreds of orders in there and we end up having to
click each one individually and move it to the invoicing node.
[17:35] Is there something we're missing that could possibly select all and move all to invoice?
[17:46] There is.
[17:47] You can create a shipment, and that will allow you to move them all in
one spot.
[17:51] Let me see if I can come up with an example of how that looks
for you.
[17:56] Can you create a shipment in that? I don't think so.
[18:01] [opens Create/Transfer Shipment] Yes. So if you click this you can create or transfer shipment.
[18:05] So if you click that, you'll be able to select multiple options here.
[18:09] [creates a shipment] And if you go here you can create a shipment, and then if you're just
using this to move things a little bit faster, none of this would be super
important for you.
[18:20] [completes packing slips within the shipment] And then from here if you click this one, it would complete all packing slips
that are within the shipment and then move them all over to invoicing.
[18:30] Huh. Okay, so you're saying just create a pseudo shipment to move them all?
[18:37] Mm-hmm. Okay.
[18:40] So if you create a shipment like prior to this, it will allow you to
sign all of those packing slips instead.
[18:45] If they're all for one customer, you can sign all packing slips at one time
as well and then move them all together.
[18:51] So we use it that way and we have several that are shipments when we
get there, but then we have many that are not, and then we end up
spending minutes doing hundreds of clicks, clicking the box and then moving it, and clicking
the box then moving it, and it'd be nice to have a move all button.
[19:16] Gotcha, gotcha.
[19:18] Are you often moving packing slips for one customer at a time, or do you
do many packing slips for each sales order, or is it usually a one packing
slip per sales order when they get piled up here?
[19:30] One packing slip per sales order, it's just 60 or 150 orders and 150 different
customers sometimes.
[19:40] Yep.
[19:43] So yeah, making a fake shipment might be the fastest way that exists today.
[19:48] And that won't impact it when it shows up over to, so, okay.
[19:59] But if I make a shipment, eliminates one click out of two clicks. All right.
So I save, Well, potentially 50 clicks instead of a hundred clicks.
[20:13] I just cut my clicks in half.
[20:14] Yeah, kind of.
[20:17] But now when I go to invoicing, does a shipment, when I go to the
invoicing node, it's not gonna screw up that.
[20:26] Will it 'cause it's in a shipment, or it doesn't matter?
[20:28] Nope. Nope.
[20:30] It'll still show up as separate sales orders.
[20:31] There is a setting, I'm not sure if your account has this turned on, where
you can invoice by shipment so you can make one invoice for a shipment.
[20:38] But that's not required.
[20:39] It would still show up as individual sales orders when you go to invoice them
on your sales order tab.
[20:48] All right. That helps, that'll save a little time, but yeah, a request we'll put
in is a select all, ship all, or move all, or whatever. Okay.
[20:57] I will definitely share that with my team.
[21:02] Thank you. I have a question on we were just talking about the terms and
how you can make it so it's paid before it ships.
[21:13] I went in to change a customer's terms and once you have a customer set
up, it appears as though I can't change terms for that customer.
[21:21] You will have to change them if it's synced to your accounting software; you can
change them in your accounting software, which terms you want.
[21:29] Okay. And then that will update in Steelhead.
[21:33] Oh, okay. Perfect. Thank you.
[22:09] Carlos, just reading your question here, you have orders that have gone through shipping and
are in the invoicing node and then get moved back to shipping.
[22:33] It shouldn't automatically move that backwards.
[22:40] So once it's in invoicing, would you, 'cause they wouldn't move back if at least
twice a day I can look into that for you.
[23:11] That shouldn't be happening, but I can reach out after this to get specific work
order examples so I can really figure out what's going on there.
[23:21] Okay. I'll follow up with the rest of my team on that.
[23:46] Hi Mary Jane, this is Anna at Wolf Powder Coating.
[23:50] I have a question. Okay.
[23:52] We used to have the ability to bring back a voided invoice, but that no
longer is an option.
[23:59] Is there another way we can do that?
[24:02] [shows recreating a voided invoice] Once you void an invoice, you have to recreate the invoice.
[24:07] So if you are here and you wanna undo one of these invoices that haven't
been synced to your accounting software, you can do that pretty quick, and voiding the
invoice would pop this sales order back up on this page to recreate, but you
cannot void an invoice.
[24:23] So it would have to be a brand new created invoice.
[24:26] Okay. Sounds great. Thank you so much Mary Jane.
[24:29] Absolutely.
[25:05] We think we understand the close and complete, and that all the orders going forward
are properly being closed and complete.
[25:14] But on that box or node that you're pointing at the sales order, one we
have thousands of orders that are gone and invoiced and customer paid, but they're not
complete and not closed.
[25:35] Is there an easy way to clean that up?
[25:40] The work orders themselves are not closed.
[25:43] Yeah. Okay.
[25:45] I think we were invoicing them wrong at one time and we weren't marrying the
parts to sales orders.
[25:53] So now that's just cluttered with a bunch of stuff that has gone paid, yeah,
there's past sales orders in there.
[26:05] Gotcha. There's not a complete all button.
[26:09] We would have to go into each individual work order and complete those.
[26:11] But if you want help with that we can work something out and make sure
that we're, So making it complete is one thing, but making it closed is another
thing.
[26:23] So if you are closing your sales order, it will not complete any of your
parts, but it will prevent you from creating any more invoices against the sales order.
[26:35] And then just because they're separate.
[26:39] And if your work order is still open, you'd have to go into each one
and just complete the parts.
[26:47] So go into the work order, complete the work order, then go into the sales
order and close the sales order, and that whole box would be cleaned up.
[26:56] Yes. If your invoices are all created, I would think that your sales order still
would've closed, and you might just have open work orders, or are your work orders
and your sales orders still open?
[27:08] We have to double check that.
[27:10] I'll double check, but I think we got a combination of both.
[27:17] Okay, thank you.
[27:18] Yeah.
[27:25] Hi, Gina from Insert Tech here.
[27:27] I'm wondering on the invoicing screen, where on the far right, where you see what
you've invoiced, there doesn't seem to be any way to filter, like, if an email
was unsuccessful, not delivered, or if something didn't sync.
[27:45] [opens View All Invoices and filters by sync status] I think, while I say that, with the syncing you'll get the error and it'll
pop up in the notifications, but it would be nice to be able to just
see the invoices with whatever issue or status.
[28:01] Like, did the invoice go through, or whatever it's, Okay. If you go to the
view all invoices page, you can filter this way, and then you can filter by
sync status.
[28:17] So you could just search by all of your unsynced ones.
[28:20] Okay. Or also by email status.
[28:25] But that's just sent or unsent.
[28:27] I don't know if that would filter out what's undelivered.
[28:30] Yeah. So not really anything right now for anything undelivered.
[28:34] Nope. But I can request that with my team.
[28:37] Yeah, that would be great. Okay, thank you.
[29:03] Looks like we are coming to the bottom of the hour.
[29:06] Are there any last minute questions or anything else I can help with?
[29:20] Well, I appreciate you all taking the time to hop on this call.
[29:23] Time is valuable, so if there's anything else we can do for you, just let
us know.
[29:31] And this will be available on our YouTube as well.
[29:33] This video, it was recorded, so if you ever need to refer back to it,
probably give it a couple days, but then they'll have it up there for you
guys.
[29:46] Alrighty, everybody have a good day.
[29:49] Thanks Mary Jane.
[00:10] So let's see. Okay. Yep.
[00:13] So it looks like we got majority of you in here.
[00:15] So hello everybody.
[00:16] Welcome to this month Steelhead Masterclass.
[00:18] It is on invoicing and it is with Mary Jane Ha.
[00:22] And she'll go over some of those points that we had in our updates.
[00:29] Hello everybody. Can everybody hear me okay?
[00:33] Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes. Perfect.
[00:37] Perfect. So we had picked out four topics on invoicing to cover.
[00:40] We know there's a lot with invoicing, but these were some things that we did
get a bit of questions about.
[00:45] So I'm just gonna dive right in.
[00:47] You should all be seeing my Steelhead home screen.
[00:52] Okay, perfect.
[00:55] So first thing we're gonna cover is how your sales order lines are.
[00:59] Your invoice lines. So if you're get to invoicing and you go to create an
invoice and your line is not what you expect it to be, it's because when
you entered the order in your sales order, it wasn't put in the correct way.
[01:13] [opens a sales order to show a sales order line] So if I go into a sales order here, this sales order line, this is
exactly what's gonna show up in your invoicing page.
[01:23] So I can show you that here.
[01:36] So you're gonna have your line and your line items.
[01:40] So your sales order line is basically the description of how you are invoicing for
the parts that are on that line.
[01:46] And then the association here is linking it to the actual parts that you are
invoicing for.
[01:54] [shows a sales order line with no parts] So you can have, if I go back into the sales order, you can have
sales order lines underneath this, like for shipping that don't have any parts on them.
[02:10] You can have multiple line items here, which is basically a breakdown of how you're
charging for the part.
[02:17] This is generally intended for internal use.
[02:20] So you can break down where that revenue is coming from 'cause each product can
be assigned to a GL code.
[02:25] And then that will be split up when your invoice does get synced over to
your accounting software.
[02:37] So as long as your sales order looks good, your invoice is gonna look good.
[02:42] And then in invoicing we have a couple of different statuses here that you can
filter by.
[02:50] So I'm just gonna go through these to make sure that everyone gets them.
[02:55] [opens a sales order to show status] So open sales orders would be any sales order that has a status of open,
which you can tell if you go into a sales order page or into any
sales order.
[03:04] And it will be right here.
[03:07] So anyone that's open is gonna automatically show up in your invoicing.
[03:13] Partially closed would be a sales order that has multiple lines and at least one
of them is closed or has been invoiced for or not.
[03:20] So you can close the line without invoicing for it.
[03:23] Parts received would be, parts are on a work order.
[03:27] So you have active parts in process and then you can filter by all.
[03:31] You can go look at all your sales order lines, sales orders that are closed,
that have already been invoiced for or haven't been, if you need to.
[03:42] And then the big ones that we mostly use here would be ready to invoice
and parts ready to invoice.
[03:49] So the difference between these two is ready to invoice is the dollar amount that
is ready to invoice.
[03:59] Whereas parts ready to invoice is purely based on where your parts are in the
process, if they're at your invoicing node or past it.
[04:10] [opens a sales order filtered by parts ready to invoice] So let me find my, If I go here, this sales order just got one
line and it's got parts and all of these parts are at the ready to
invoicing node if I go into my work order here.
[04:36] So all parts are at the last step ready to be invoiced and they're attached
to a line that is open.
[04:45] But here you can also have your shipping line here that is not associated to
any parts 'cause you're just billing that for the sales order completely.
[04:56] It's not attached to any parts that will always be ready to invoice 'cause you
can invoice for it at any time.
[05:03] So this invoice, or this sales order is not gonna show up as ready to
invoice if I'm only filtering by parts ready to invoice, because the parts associated to
the first line on that sales order were not at the invoicing step.
[05:27] And your pay to ship would show up every single sales order that has cash
on delivery terms if they're set up for payment required before shipping.
[05:40] And that warning will also show up on your shipping dashboard to say payment is
required before you go to create that packing slip.
[05:58] All right.
[06:03] [opens a work order to show part groups] And then if we go here, so if I have a, I'm actually gonna show
you what this work order looks like first.
[06:20] So if you have a work order that's got one part number that's on one
sales line that's got many groups and all of these groups are at different parts
on the tree, each of these groups is considered a different part account, which is
why it'll list each group underneath that line as a part association.
[06:41] [opens the invoicing screen showing parts ready to invoice] So back here we can see that this pops up automatically at 25 that's ready
to invoice.
[06:51] So these are the only ones that are at invoicing.
[06:53] And I'm just linking that this invoice belongs to these parts.
[06:59] And when I create this invoice, it won't automatically close the sales order line here
because I still have all of these parts that I haven't invoiced for.
[07:10] So your association just links the actual parts that you're processing to the line that
you're billing, and then you can track and make sure that your invoice belongs to
the right packing slip or the same part group.
[07:23] [creates an invoice for one part group] And then your parts done invoicing are basically like the function of that is so
that when you click this, so for group number six and I create this invoice,
our internet's been a little slow here so I apologize for the wait, but after
I create this for group six and I go back in and I wanna create
another invoice for the same line for one of the other groups, that group number
six is not gonna show up anymore 'cause it's considered done, which is helpful if
you're invoicing by packing slip so that you're not, so that you don't have two
invoices assigned to the same parts.
[08:18] So it's the same part number but a different part group.
[08:20] So it keeps them separate and then you can track them a little easier and
make sure you're invoicing for the right pieces.
[08:28] But it really cleans up this page when you've got one work order that's got
a bunch of accounts.
[08:38] And then if you have, and then the last thing we wanted to go over
was this cannot invoice parts tab.
[08:54] So these parts, parts will only show up here if you have parts that are
stuck at an invoicing node and for some reason they cannot be invoiced.
[09:04] So that's for one of two reasons.
[09:05] One, you created an invoice for a part but did not associate the parts to
that invoice, and then your sales order closes, but your parts are still active.
[09:19] So they would show up here.
[09:23] And then to fix that we would go into the work order because your invoice
is still gonna look correct, it's still gonna have the two parts that it's invoicing
for based on your sales line.
[09:34] It just didn't link the parts to them.
[09:37] So to get this to be removed from this page, you can go into your
work order and complete the parts.
[09:48] And then the same thing for the other one that was here.
[09:56] The other reason parts would show up here, even if they are associated to an
invoice, would be if I am here, if my parts, maybe I made an invoice,
I created the invoice for these parts when they were up here in final inspection
instead of waiting till they were in invoicing.
[10:14] So I made the invoice, I associated the parts, I hit done invoicing, and then
my guys continued to move the parts to invoicing.
[10:21] But now that they're at invoicing, there's nothing left for them to do because they've
already been invoiced.
[10:26] So at this point you would just complete your parts.
[10:32] So if this, so the point of an invoicing node would be if you do
not wanna complete your work order until you've already created the invoice for it, or
even, or if you have a lot of parts that are getting stuck in these
scenarios but you've already invoiced for them, the option would be to remove your invoicing
node.
[10:58] 'Cause then the parts would still show up as ready to invoice if they get
completed.
[11:03] So your filters for your sales orders would still be correct even if you didn't
have an invoicing node.
[11:09] But this is a good place to look if you got parts here and you're
like, why aren't they being completed or am I invoicing for the right things?
[11:22] So those were the main points that I wanted to cover and I think I
might talk a little faster than I anticipated.
[11:30] So now we have a lot of time for questions or if there's anything else
that you'd like me to dig into.
[11:56] Good morning everyone. Good morning.
[12:00] Hi, this is Nancy at Avon. Hi. Hi.
[12:05] I do have a question on the invoicing part of it under status.
[12:12] Okay. Paid to ship.
[12:17] So I know we do have COD customers all the time.
[12:25] Can you explain that a little bit because I go to that tab and there's
nothing in there.
[12:30] Sure. So what brings something into here?
[12:35] So this would be based on your invoicing terms.
[12:38] It looks like Sue had a similar question.
[12:41] [opens invoicing terms] If you go to view all invoices and then into your invoicing terms, you can
select your cash on delivery, or you can create a new term that says is
payment required to ship, and then it would show up if you have any sales
orders that have this term attached to them.
[12:58] [edits a sales order's payment terms] So here, that would be when you create your sales order, or you can edit
a sales order that already exists, but you can edit the terms if you already
have terms that would be cash on delivery that you'd like to use for this.
[13:15] And you can just edit that to say, hey, yes, I wanna check this.
[13:21] So, and of course now that I need one, I don't see one, but let's
see, because if I'm not mistaken, I think the sales order or, okay, so if
I enter a customer today, ABC, and on the customer file I click COD, is
that it?
[13:56] Or I still need to do, You would still have to go into your invoicing
terms and make sure that COD is checked as is payment required to ship.
[14:09] Okay. And how do I access the invoice terms again?
[14:15] [opens View All Invoices to find invoice terms] From invoicing, go to view all invoices up here.
[14:21] Okay. And then invoice terms is right on the top in the same spot.
[14:25] Invoice terms.
[14:28] [edits the COD term and saves] Okay. So then I see the COD here and then I'm gonna edit it and
put this payment required for shipping.
[14:37] I'm gonna click that save.
[14:43] Okay, now I see that. Yes in there.
[14:46] So that's it. Then COD customers then will prompt when front desk is trying to
create a packing slip.
[14:56] Yep. So it won't stop them from creating a packing slip, but it will give
them this warning that payment is required.
[15:03] Oh nice. Okay. I like it. Perfect.
[15:08] Okay. Okay.
[15:11] That's good. Okay.
[15:14] That was my only question so far.
[15:21] And hi Elizabeth, nice to meet you.
[15:25] Hi Nancy, how are you? Good, good and you?
[15:29] Good, good, good.
[15:31] I'll probably calling you in a little bit or later so.
[15:35] Okay, sounds good.
[15:37] Thank you. And hi Ashley, I met you before.
[15:44] Hello there. Hello.
[15:45] Hi. And thank you Mary Jane.
[15:50] But yeah, it's, I know I have another few questions but that's not so much
for invoicing so I know this class is for that.
[16:02] So I will address those later.
[16:04] Okay.
[16:14] And also if you hover over any of these, it will tell you exactly more
information on them, and then this dialogue is also very helpful.
[16:25] Okay. Perfect.
[16:44] Hello? Hello.
[16:47] Hi, this is Ben with Twin City Plating.
[16:50] We have a question when orders go from the shipping node to the invoicing node,
if you go to like your shipping page, and the packing slip sign box in
the bottom right, we, throughout the day, I mean that will fill up throughout the
day and we'll have hundreds of orders in there and we end up having to
click each one individually and move it to the invoicing node.
[17:35] Is there something we're missing that could possibly select all and move all to invoice?
[17:46] There is.
[17:47] You can create a shipment, and that will allow you to move them all in
one spot.
[17:51] Let me see if I can come up with an example of how that looks
for you.
[17:56] Can you create a shipment in that? I don't think so.
[18:01] [opens Create/Transfer Shipment] Yes. So if you click this you can create or transfer shipment.
[18:05] So if you click that, you'll be able to select multiple options here.
[18:09] [creates a shipment] And if you go here you can create a shipment, and then if you're just
using this to move things a little bit faster, none of this would be super
important for you.
[18:20] [completes packing slips within the shipment] And then from here if you click this one, it would complete all packing slips
that are within the shipment and then move them all over to invoicing.
[18:30] Huh. Okay, so you're saying just create a pseudo shipment to move them all?
[18:37] Mm-hmm. Okay.
[18:40] So if you create a shipment like prior to this, it will allow you to
sign all of those packing slips instead.
[18:45] If they're all for one customer, you can sign all packing slips at one time
as well and then move them all together.
[18:51] So we use it that way and we have several that are shipments when we
get there, but then we have many that are not, and then we end up
spending minutes doing hundreds of clicks, clicking the box and then moving it, and clicking
the box then moving it, and it'd be nice to have a move all button.
[19:16] Gotcha, gotcha.
[19:18] Are you often moving packing slips for one customer at a time, or do you
do many packing slips for each sales order, or is it usually a one packing
slip per sales order when they get piled up here?
[19:30] One packing slip per sales order, it's just 60 or 150 orders and 150 different
customers sometimes.
[19:40] Yep.
[19:43] So yeah, making a fake shipment might be the fastest way that exists today.
[19:48] And that won't impact it when it shows up over to, so, okay.
[19:59] But if I make a shipment, eliminates one click out of two clicks. All right.
So I save, Well, potentially 50 clicks instead of a hundred clicks.
[20:13] I just cut my clicks in half.
[20:14] Yeah, kind of.
[20:17] But now when I go to invoicing, does a shipment, when I go to the
invoicing node, it's not gonna screw up that.
[20:26] Will it 'cause it's in a shipment, or it doesn't matter?
[20:28] Nope. Nope.
[20:30] It'll still show up as separate sales orders.
[20:31] There is a setting, I'm not sure if your account has this turned on, where
you can invoice by shipment so you can make one invoice for a shipment.
[20:38] But that's not required.
[20:39] It would still show up as individual sales orders when you go to invoice them
on your sales order tab.
[20:48] All right. That helps, that'll save a little time, but yeah, a request we'll put
in is a select all, ship all, or move all, or whatever. Okay.
[20:57] I will definitely share that with my team.
[21:02] Thank you. I have a question on we were just talking about the terms and
how you can make it so it's paid before it ships.
[21:13] I went in to change a customer's terms and once you have a customer set
up, it appears as though I can't change terms for that customer.
[21:21] You will have to change them if it's synced to your accounting software; you can
change them in your accounting software, which terms you want.
[21:29] Okay. And then that will update in Steelhead.
[21:33] Oh, okay. Perfect. Thank you.
[22:09] Carlos, just reading your question here, you have orders that have gone through shipping and
are in the invoicing node and then get moved back to shipping.
[22:33] It shouldn't automatically move that backwards.
[22:40] So once it's in invoicing, would you, 'cause they wouldn't move back if at least
twice a day I can look into that for you.
[23:11] That shouldn't be happening, but I can reach out after this to get specific work
order examples so I can really figure out what's going on there.
[23:21] Okay. I'll follow up with the rest of my team on that.
[23:46] Hi Mary Jane, this is Anna at Wolf Powder Coating.
[23:50] I have a question. Okay.
[23:52] We used to have the ability to bring back a voided invoice, but that no
longer is an option.
[23:59] Is there another way we can do that?
[24:02] [shows recreating a voided invoice] Once you void an invoice, you have to recreate the invoice.
[24:07] So if you are here and you wanna undo one of these invoices that haven't
been synced to your accounting software, you can do that pretty quick, and voiding the
invoice would pop this sales order back up on this page to recreate, but you
cannot void an invoice.
[24:23] So it would have to be a brand new created invoice.
[24:26] Okay. Sounds great. Thank you so much Mary Jane.
[24:29] Absolutely.
[25:05] We think we understand the close and complete, and that all the orders going forward
are properly being closed and complete.
[25:14] But on that box or node that you're pointing at the sales order, one we
have thousands of orders that are gone and invoiced and customer paid, but they're not
complete and not closed.
[25:35] Is there an easy way to clean that up?
[25:40] The work orders themselves are not closed.
[25:43] Yeah. Okay.
[25:45] I think we were invoicing them wrong at one time and we weren't marrying the
parts to sales orders.
[25:53] So now that's just cluttered with a bunch of stuff that has gone paid, yeah,
there's past sales orders in there.
[26:05] Gotcha. There's not a complete all button.
[26:09] We would have to go into each individual work order and complete those.
[26:11] But if you want help with that we can work something out and make sure
that we're, So making it complete is one thing, but making it closed is another
thing.
[26:23] So if you are closing your sales order, it will not complete any of your
parts, but it will prevent you from creating any more invoices against the sales order.
[26:35] And then just because they're separate.
[26:39] And if your work order is still open, you'd have to go into each one
and just complete the parts.
[26:47] So go into the work order, complete the work order, then go into the sales
order and close the sales order, and that whole box would be cleaned up.
[26:56] Yes. If your invoices are all created, I would think that your sales order still
would've closed, and you might just have open work orders, or are your work orders
and your sales orders still open?
[27:08] We have to double check that.
[27:10] I'll double check, but I think we got a combination of both.
[27:17] Okay, thank you.
[27:18] Yeah.
[27:25] Hi, Gina from Insert Tech here.
[27:27] I'm wondering on the invoicing screen, where on the far right, where you see what
you've invoiced, there doesn't seem to be any way to filter, like, if an email
was unsuccessful, not delivered, or if something didn't sync.
[27:45] [opens View All Invoices and filters by sync status] I think, while I say that, with the syncing you'll get the error and it'll
pop up in the notifications, but it would be nice to be able to just
see the invoices with whatever issue or status.
[28:01] Like, did the invoice go through, or whatever it's, Okay. If you go to the
view all invoices page, you can filter this way, and then you can filter by
sync status.
[28:17] So you could just search by all of your unsynced ones.
[28:20] Okay. Or also by email status.
[28:25] But that's just sent or unsent.
[28:27] I don't know if that would filter out what's undelivered.
[28:30] Yeah. So not really anything right now for anything undelivered.
[28:34] Nope. But I can request that with my team.
[28:37] Yeah, that would be great. Okay, thank you.
[29:03] Looks like we are coming to the bottom of the hour.
[29:06] Are there any last minute questions or anything else I can help with?
[29:20] Well, I appreciate you all taking the time to hop on this call.
[29:23] Time is valuable, so if there's anything else we can do for you, just let
us know.
[29:31] And this will be available on our YouTube as well.
[29:33] This video, it was recorded, so if you ever need to refer back to it,
probably give it a couple days, but then they'll have it up there for you
guys.
[29:46] Alrighty, everybody have a good day.
[29:49] Thanks Mary Jane.
Taxonomy tags
Steelhead product area
Invoicing; Accounting; Sales orders; Shipping
Feature / module
Invoicing statuses; Sales order lines and line items; Cannot Invoice Parts; Invoicing terms; Shipments; View
All Invoices
All Invoices
Workflow category
Billing and invoicing; sales order-to-cash cleanup; payment terms configuration
Topics covered
Sales order lines vs. invoice lines; invoicing status filters; ready to invoice vs. parts ready
to invoice; Cannot Invoice Parts troubleshooting; cash-on-delivery payment terms; shipments for batch invoicing; voided invoices;
invoice sync and email status
to invoice; Cannot Invoice Parts troubleshooting; cash-on-delivery payment terms; shipments for batch invoicing; voided invoices;
invoice sync and email status