Create an invoice

An invoice is a document you send to a customer asking them to pay for goods or services. In accounting terms it is an accounts receivable (AR) transaction; in Dutch it is a debiteur or verkoopfactuur.

Terminology reminder

Shillinq uses invoice for what you send, and bill for what you receive. See Bookkeeping foundations for the full breakdown.

The fast way: quick draft

For everyday invoicing, use the quick draft on the Financial overview dashboard:

1. Click Create invoice in the dashboard header.
2. In the Quick draft invoice dialog, pick a Customer (search by name), check the invoice and due dates, and add one or more lines (description, quantity, unit price, VAT).
3. Click Save draft.

Shillinq numbers the invoice, sets the administration and fiscal period for you, and books it to Accounts receivable in Draft status. This is the recommended path for a normal sales invoice. Use the detailed form below only when you need the full EN 16931 party, tax, and e-invoicing fields.

The detailed form

1. Open Sales → Accounts receivable.
2. Click Add AR Invoice. This opens the full EN 16931 invoice form, with all party, tax, and e-invoicing fields available.
3. Fill in the header:
   • customer — pick from your Nextcloud contacts list. The customer is always a Nextcloud contact; Shillinq never duplicates the contact record.
   • invoiceNumber — Shillinq auto-generates the next number in your configured sequence (e.g. F2026-001). You can override it.
   • invoiceDate — today's date by default.
   • dueDate — auto-calculated from your default payment terms (e.g. 30 days after invoice date). Edit if needed.
   • reference — customer's purchase order number or other reference they want on the invoice (shown in their banking payment description).
   • currency — defaults to EUR.
4. Add invoice lines:
   • description — what you are invoicing for.
   • quantity and unitPrice.
   • glAccount — the revenue account from your chart of accounts (e.g. 80000 for professional services).
   • vatCode — the applicable VAT treatment (21 %, 9 %, 0 %, or exempt).
5. Verify totals.
6. Click Save as draft.

The invoice is in Draft status — not yet visible to the customer and not yet posted to the ledger.

Preview and send the invoice

1. From the invoice detail, click Preview to see the formatted PDF.

2. Verify the customer details, your company details, the invoice lines, VAT breakdown, and payment instructions (IBAN).

3. When satisfied, click Send invoice:

   • Shillinq generates a PDF and an UBL 2.1 XML attachment (required for Dutch government clients under the DigiInkoop mandate).
   • Choose the delivery method:
     • Email — sends the PDF and UBL directly from Nextcloud Mail.
     • Peppol — routes the UBL invoice through the Peppol network (for customers with a Peppol address / OIN).
     • Download — download the PDF and UBL to send yourself.

4. Click Send. The invoice status changes to Sent and the journal entry is posted:

   Account	Debit	Credit
   Debiteuren 13000	invoice total
   Revenue account (e.g. 80000)		net amount
   BTW te betalen 51000		VAT amount

Invoice numbering

Shillinq enforces sequential invoice numbering per fiscal year (required by Dutch tax law). The format is configurable in Settings → Invoice numbering:

• Prefix: F, INV, or your own string.
• Year: 2026 (four-digit) or 26 (two-digit).
• Sequence: padded to a fixed width (e.g. 001).

Example: F2026-001, F2026-002, …

pas op

You cannot re-use or skip invoice numbers. If you delete a draft invoice, its number is not reused — the next invoice gets the next number. This is the correct behaviour under Dutch tax law.

Sending to Dutch government clients (Peppol / DigiInkoop)

Dutch central government and many municipalities require e-invoices in UBL 2.1 format via the Peppol network. Shillinq handles this automatically when you configure Peppol in Settings → E-invoicing:

1. Enter your Peppol sender ID (your KvK number formatted as 0106:{kvknumber}).
2. Set your access point credentials.
3. When sending an invoice to a government customer, select the Peppol delivery method and enter the customer's OIN (Organisatie Identificatie Nummer) as the Peppol receiver ID.
4. Put the order number or reference the government customer gave you in the invoice's reference. Shillinq sends it as the buyer reference (BT-10), which most government buyers need to route the invoice. An empty reference is left out of the e-invoice.

Send e-invoice and delivery status

On the invoice detail page, the header shows a Send e-invoice action next to a delivery status chip. The action is only enabled once the invoice is issued. Before anything is transmitted, Shillinq validates the debtor's KvK number and BTW-nummer (live against VIES when available) and looks up the customer's Peppol participant ID — if the customer has no Peppol identity, the invoice is not queued and Shillinq suggests the PDF + email route instead.

After a successful send, the chip advances through the delivery states as the access point reports back:

Status	Meaning
Not sent	No Peppol transmission attempted (or fallen back to PDF + email)
Queued	Validation passed; handed to the access point
Sent	The access point accepted the transmission
Delivered	The recipient's access point confirmed delivery
Rejected	The document was rejected — finance operators are notified with the reason
Failed	Transmission failed before processing

The transmitted artefact is a hybrid PDF (human-readable PDF with the NLCIUS UBL 2.1 XML embedded as ubl-invoice.xml), so one file serves both the reader and the machine. This is the NL/Peppol UBL format — it is not a Factur-X / ZUGFeRD document (those require UN/CEFACT CII XML, not UBL) and is not declared PDF/A-3-conformant.

Track payment status

After sending, the invoice appears in Bookkeeping → Accounts receivable → Open invoices. The Financial overview dashboard widget Open receivables shows the oldest unpaid invoices.

When the customer pays, the payment is matched during bank reconciliation. See Import your bank statement.

Credit notes

To cancel or partially credit a sent invoice:

1. Open the invoice detail.
2. Click Create credit note.
3. Adjust the lines (remove, reduce quantity, or change price).
4. Save and send the credit note. Shillinq posts the reversing journal entry and links the credit note to the original invoice.

Common issues

Issue	Cause	Fix
Customer missing from autocomplete	Not in Nextcloud Contacts	Add the customer to Nextcloud Contacts first
Invoice number gap	Deleted draft invoice	Normal — do not fill the gap (required by Dutch tax law)
Peppol delivery fails	Wrong OIN or misconfigured access point	Verify OIN in Settings → E-invoicing and check the access point credentials
VAT exempt customer (e.g. outside EU)	Incorrect VAT code	Set the line vatCode to 0% or exempt and add the legal note in the invoice footer