Accounts Receivable

Accounts Receivable (AR) in Ayiza manages everything related to the money owed to your business by customers. This includes creating customer invoices, tracking outstanding balances, collecting payments (including online payments via Stripe), and monitoring receivables through aging reports.

What Accounts Receivable covers

• Customer invoices -- Creating invoices for goods and services you provide, across a wide range of invoice types (standard, proforma, recurring, milestone, credit memos, and more).
• Approval workflow -- A multi-step process (Draft, Approved, Posted) ensures invoices are reviewed before they hit the books.
• Posting to the general ledger -- When posted, invoices automatically create accounting documents with the correct revenue and AR control account entries.
• Sending invoices and collecting payments -- Send invoices to customers directly through Ayiza, including online payment via Stripe.
• Customer balances -- View how much each customer owes you at any point in time.
• Aging analysis -- Understand which receivables are current and which are overdue, broken down into configurable aging buckets.

Typical AR workflow

The end-to-end process for a customer invoice follows these steps:

Create invoice → Approve → Post → Send to customer → Receive payment → Reconcile

1. Create the invoice

Navigate to Customer Invoices and create a new invoice. Enter the header information (company code, customer, currency, dates) and add one or more lines with products or services, quantities, prices, and tax codes.

See Customer Invoices for detailed instructions.

2. Approve the invoice

Once the invoice is complete, approve it. Ayiza checks that the invoice has at least one line, then assigns an invoice number automatically. The invoice moves from Draft to Approved status.

3. Post the invoice

Posting creates an accounting document in the general ledger. Ayiza automatically:

• Debits the customer's AR control account for the total invoice amount.
• Credits the appropriate revenue G/L accounts based on the invoice lines.
• Converts amounts into all configured currency roles (company code currency, functional currency, group currency).
• Creates tax register entries for VAT reporting.

After posting, the invoice appears as an open item against the customer.

4. Send to the customer

You can send the invoice to your customer in several ways:

• Stripe -- Send the invoice through Stripe so the customer can pay online by card or bank transfer. Ayiza creates a Stripe invoice, and the customer receives an email with a payment link.
• Manual -- Export or print the invoice and send it by email or post.

5. Receive payment

Payments arrive in different ways depending on how the invoice was sent:

• Stripe payment -- When the customer pays online, Stripe sends a webhook notification to Ayiza. The payment is recorded automatically, an accounting document is created, and the AR open item is settled -- all without manual intervention.
• Bank transfer -- The payment appears on your bank statement. Import the statement through the Banking module.

6. Reconcile

For bank transfer payments, match the bank statement line to the customer invoice during bank reconciliation. This settles the open item and marks the invoice as paid.

For Stripe payments, reconciliation happens automatically when the webhook is processed.

Key permissions

To work with Accounts Receivable, your user account needs the appropriate permissions:

Action	Permission required
View customer invoices	Customer Invoice -- Read
Create a customer invoice	Customer Invoice -- Create
Approve a customer invoice	Customer Invoice -- Approve
Post a customer invoice	Customer Invoice -- Post
Reverse a posted invoice	Customer Invoice -- Reverse
Send via Stripe	Stripe -- Send Invoice
Cancel a Stripe invoice	Stripe -- Cancel Invoice

Your administrator assigns these permissions through the User Management area.

Invoice types

Ayiza supports several customer invoice types to cover different business scenarios:

Type	Use case
Customer Invoice	Standard invoice for goods or services delivered.
Proforma Customer Invoice	Preliminary invoice sent before delivery. Does not affect revenue until converted to a standard invoice.
Recurring Customer Invoice	Invoice issued at regular intervals for subscriptions or ongoing contracts.
Milestone Customer Invoice	Invoice tied to the completion of specific project milestones.
Percentage of Completion Customer Invoice	Invoice based on the percentage of project work completed.
Interim Customer Invoice	Invoice issued mid-project to cover ongoing costs.
Final Customer Invoice	The last invoice for a project, summarising all charges.
Customer Credit Memo	A credit note reducing the amount the customer owes.
Debit Customer Invoice	An additional charge for undercharges or extra services.
VAT-Only Customer Invoice	An invoice that contains only VAT charges.

Related areas

• Customer Invoices -- Step-by-step guide to creating and managing customer invoices.
• Business Partners -- Set up customers before creating invoices.
• Banking -- Import bank statements and reconcile payments received by bank transfer.
• General Ledger -- View the accounting documents created by posted invoices.
• UK Tax Compliance -- VAT returns use the tax register entries created during invoice posting.