Creating Sales and Purchasing Documents with Negative Totals

Prerequisites

You use one of the following localizations of SAP Business One: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Russia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, USA.

Use

You can create invoices with negative totals. This allows you to bill and refund a customer or vendor in one single document. This may be convenient for example, if you as a sales person are on the phone with a customer who is ordering certain items, but at the same time wants to return some items that he ordered previously. In this case, instead of posting an A/R invoice and a credit memo, you enter the items that the customer purchases as a positive quantity and the goods the customer intends to return as a negative quantity.

Recommendation

We recommend that you consider carefully whether you would like to record two opposite transactions in one document. Posting two documents helps to improve transparency in accounting.

End of the recommendation.

You can generate the following documents with a negative total:

A/R and A/P invoice
A/R and A/P credit memo
An A/R delivery
An A/R return
An A/P goods receipt
An A/P goods return

The inventory valuation behavior of the documents with negative totals is as outlined in the table below.

Inventory valuation behavior of documents with negative totals
Type of Transaction	Similar Transaction	Inventory Account	Balance Account	Profit & Loss Account
Goods receipt P/O	Goods return	Inventory	Allocation
Goods return	Goods receipt P/O	Inventory	Allocation
A/P Invoice	A/P credit memo	Inventory	Vendor	Negative Adjustment Account, Price Differences Account
A/P credit memo	A/P invoice	Inventory	Vendor	Negative Adjustment Account, Price Differences Account
Delivery	A/R return	Inventory	COGS
Return	Delivery	Sales Return	COGS
A/R invoice	A/R credit memo	Inventory	COGS
A/R credit memo	A/R invoice	Sales Return	COGS
Goods receipt P/O based on goods return	Goods return based on goods receipt P/O	Inventory	Allocation	Negative Adjustment Account, Price Differences Account
Goods return based on goods receipt P/O	Goods receipt P/O based on goods return	Inventory	Allocation	Negative Adjustment Account, Price Differences Account
A/P invoice based on goods receipt P/O	Credit memo based on goods return	No inventory transaction
A/P credit memo based on goods return	A/P invoice based on goods receipt P/O		Vendor, Allocation	Price Differences Account, Negative Adjustment Account
A/P credit memo based on A/P invoice	Invoice based on credit memo	Inventory	Vendor	Negative Adjustment Account, Price Differences Account
Delivery based on return	Delivery based on return	Inventory	COGS	Negative Adjustment Account
Return based on delivery	Return based on delivery	Sales Return	COGS	Negative Adjustment Account, Price Differences Account
A/R invoice based on delivery	Credit memo based on return	No inventory transaction
A/R credit memo based on return	A/R invoice based on delivery	No inventory transaction
A/R credit memo based on invoice	A/R invoice based on credit memo	Sales Return	COGS	Negative Adjustment Account, Price Differences Account

Note Note

You cannot copy sales or purchasing documents with a negative total into correction invoices.

Relevant for India: Due to legal restrictions, you cannot copy sales or purchasing documents with a negative total into incoming or outgoing excise invoices.

End of the note.