Supplier Debit Notes

A supplier debit note records money that a supplier owes you. It is the purchasing side’s mirror of a credit note that you give a client. You raise one after goods went back to the supplier on a supplier return, or after a supplier’s bill charged a wrong price or quantity. The note is how you get that money back. If the supplier’s bill is Approved or Partially paid, the note first lowers what you still owe on it. Then you collect the rest as a refund in Treasury.

The Procurement clerk can raise a note from a return, or write one by hand. Only the Procurement manager and the owner of your organization can issue a note, cancel it or delete it.

Key Concepts

• Debit note is a document that says the supplier owes your organization an amount, and why. Its reason is Return, Damage, Pricing error, Quantity error or Other. Its number comes from its own SDN series, such as SDN-2026-000001.
• Linked bill is the supplier’s bill that the note comes off when you issue it. A note raised from a return always names the bill that charged for the goods. A note that you write by hand can name one bill, or none.
• Lines are on a note raised from a return only. They list what went back, line by line, at the price and the TVA that the bill charged for it. TVA is the value-added tax. A note written by hand has no lines, only its amounts.
• Applied and Remaining say how much of the note is used. Applied is what came off the bill at the issue, and every refund since. Remaining is what the supplier still owes you on the note. Beelocity keeps both, and you never type them.

When to Raise One

The most common reason is a shipped return. Say that you received 10 units at 2,000 DA each, and the supplier billed you 20,000 DA. Four units turn out to be faulty, so you create a return and ship it. The goods have gone back, but the supplier still holds the 8,000 DA that you were billed for them. The debit note is how you claim that money.

If the goods went back before the supplier billed you, you need no note. Bill the order as usual, and the bill leaves out what went back.

The other reason is a billing error with nothing sent back. For example, the supplier billed 2,200 DA a unit instead of the agreed 2,000 DA, or 12 units instead of 10. Write a note by hand for the difference, with Pricing error or Quantity error as its reason.

Raising a Note from a Return

1. Open the Shipped supplier return. Press Raise Debit Note, under More actions at the top of its page.

2. The dialog says what Beelocity will build. Press Raise Debit Note in it.

3. Beelocity builds the note from the supplier’s bill. Each returned quantity takes the price and the TVA rate that the bill charged for it.

   Say that four units went back from a line billed at 2,000 DA with 19 % TVA. They come to 8,000 DA plus 1,520 DA of TVA, so 9,520 DA in all. That is exactly what the bill charged for them.

4. Beelocity dates the note on the later of the return’s date and the bill’s date. The note names both the return and the bill.

5. Beelocity saves the note as a Draft and opens it. Its Debit Note Lines tab shows each line at the bill’s price.

   Its Notes are empty, because the page already names the return under From return.

A few rules apply:

• Only a Shipped return takes a note, because until then nothing has left your stock. Raise the note before you close the return.
• A bill that passed its match must charge for the goods. If no such bill charges for them yet, Beelocity refuses. It also refuses if the goods went back before the bill, because then the bill left them out and there is nothing to take back.
• Goods billed on more than one bill cannot be raised from the return. Write a note by hand for each bill to claim the money instead. A note written by hand does not give the quantities back to the purchase order. So the order keeps counting those goods as billed, and you cannot bill a replacement for them from it.
• A return holds one live note at most. If you raise a second one, Beelocity refuses, and the message offers Open it to take you to the note that exists. While the return is Shipped, you can cancel the old note and raise it again. The new note takes the same bill, the same date and the same prices.
• A note raised from a return follows the return and the bill. You cannot change its supplier, reason, issue date, currency, linked bill or amounts. You can change only its Notes and Internal notes.

You can also start from nothing. Open Procurement > Supplier Debit Notes, and press New. Pick the supplier and the reason, check the currency, and type the amounts yourself. If you link one of the supplier’s bills, the note takes the bill’s currency, and you cannot change it.

Editing the Draft

A note that you write by hand changes nothing while it is a Draft. You can change each of its fields except its number:

• Linked bill is the bill that this note should come off. The picker lists the chosen supplier’s bills, each with its status and what it still owes. If you leave it empty, you collect the whole amount as a refund.
• Subtotal and Tax amount are the amount before tax and the tax on it. The Total is their sum, and Beelocity works it out as you type.
• Notes are what the supplier should know, such as what went back. Beelocity does not print or send them. Internal notes stay with your team.

On a note raised from a return, only the two notes can change, because its figures are the bill’s.

While a note is a draft, the Procurement manager and the owner of your organization can delete it or cancel it.

Issuing — What Happens to the Bill

The road along the top of the note’s page shows Draft and Issued, the two steps of a debit note that does its job. Issued is the next step, so click it, and press Issue in the dialog. Only the Procurement manager and the owner of your organization can issue a note. This is the step that moves the money:

• If the linked bill is Approved or Partially paid, the note comes off it at once. The bill’s Amount due drops as if a payment had settled it, and the bill moves to Partially paid or Paid.
• The note takes off no more than the bill still owes. Say that an 8,000 DA note names a bill that owes 5,000 DA. The note takes 5,000 DA off the bill and keeps 3,000 DA.
• If the bill has any other status, or is inactive, nothing comes off it. The whole amount stays on the note, and nothing takes it off the bill later. So issue a note after its bill is approved.
• What the bill did not take stays on the note as its Remaining, and so does the whole total when no bill is linked. You collect it as a refund.
• A note raised from a return also gives the returned quantities back to the purchase order. The order no longer counts them as billed, so you can bill the replacement when the supplier sends the goods again. If another note on the same order line already gave those quantities back, Beelocity refuses the issue and says how much is left.

Beelocity refuses to issue a note whose total is zero. After the issue, you cannot edit the note.

Collecting the Remainder — the Refund

The Remaining on an issued note is money that the supplier has to send back. The Treasurer collects it in Treasury, on Receipts & Payments. They record what the supplier pays back and set it against this note. The Treasury page explains how.

Treasury takes only an Issued note whose Active box is ticked, and never more than its Remaining. The refund has to be in the note’s currency. After the Treasurer confirms the receipt, the note’s Applied goes up by the refund.

Cancelling

Cancelled is not a step on the road, so you pick it in the list of moves. Click the step that the note is on, pick Cancelled, and press Cancel Note in the dialog. If you cancel a Draft, nothing changes, because the draft had not done anything yet.

If you cancel an Issued note, Beelocity undoes what the issue did. The bill owes again what the note took off it, and a Paid bill goes back to Approved or Partially paid.

Beelocity refuses while a refund receipt in Treasury is set against the note. The Treasurer can take the note off a receipt only while that receipt is a draft. After the receipt is confirmed, the note can no longer be cancelled.

If the note was raised from a return, cancelling it also counts its quantities as billed again. The return then waits for its credit again, even if the supplier’s replacement or the rest of the order was billed since. While the return is Shipped, you can raise a new note from it. After you close the return, you cannot.

Finding a Note

The Supplier Debit Notes list finds a note by its number or its notes. Its filter button narrows the list by Reason, Status, Supplier and Active. It also takes a range of Issue date, and a band of Total or Applied. See Working with lists. An inactive note stays in the list. The Remaining column is worked out from the other two, so you cannot filter on it.

Statuses

Important Notes

• Who can act. The Procurement clerk can raise a note from a return and write one by hand. Only the Procurement manager and the owner of your organization can issue, cancel or delete a note.
• The currency. A note always takes its linked bill’s currency, and a refund has to be in the note’s currency.
• A note from a return holds its bill. While such a note is not cancelled, you cannot reopen its bill as a draft or cancel it. If you try, the message names the note, so cancel the note first. If its return is Closed, you cannot raise that note again after you cancel it.
• The supplier’s paper. The supplier’s own paper for the same credit is often called an avoir fournisseur. Write its reference in the note’s Notes, so that each side can find its paper.