Why Won't My Agreement Invoice Post?

Whether you're new to working with Agreements or have been doing this for years, you'll eventually come across an agreement that did not generate an invoice when you told it to.  Now you have to figure out why; which is not always easy.  

First thing's first, sometimes an invoice really did post, but gets overlooked.  The first thing you'll want to do is head to the Invoice List and search by the customer's name in the Added Last 30 Days view.  

Now that we've verified that no invoice was generated, it's time to check out the Agreement itself.  You can recall that customer's agreement from the Agreement List.  Use the Search field to look up the correct agreement and then double-click on it in the list below.  

Date Last Invoiced

In the Agreement screen, the first thing you'll want to look at is the Last Invoiced field under the General tab.  If an invoice was created for this customer and the Agreement field was filled in, it will update the Agreement with the date of the invoice in this field.  If the date in this field is for the same month you are trying to post, then it will prevent a new invoice from being created.  It does this to prevent duplicates from being created by accident.  To fix this, simply clear the Last Invoiced field and then Save the Agreement.  You may now post your monthly invoices again and that invoice should be created.

Month To Post

If that wasn't the issue, head on over to the Invoice tab of the Agreement screen.  There, you'll want to make sure that items have been added and that the Month to Post is set to the month you are currently in.  If the line items are set to post "On Dispatch", then you won't be able to generate an invoice for this items.  Instead, they'll appear on the Parts tab of the dispatches that are created from this agreement and then carried to the invoice created for that dispatch.  

Begin Invoicing On

If everything looks correct so far, then it most likely has to do with your current date.  At the bottom of the Invoice tab on the Agreements screen, you'll see a date field that reads "Begin Invoicing On".  This is a 'set-it-and-forget-it' feature that prevents a customer for being invoiced prematurely.  If this date is set for a future date, it will prevent invoices from being posted.  If this date has passed, then it will not cause you any problems and should allow the invoices to post.  

Let's say we're in the month of April and you have just sold a new annual agreement to a customer.  In the Invoice tab, you want the next invoice to be generated in April of next year, but not before that time.  So you'll set the Begin Invoicing On field to a date in March of the next year.  Now, if someone uses the Post Monthly Invoices feature this April, it will not accidentally generate a second invoice for this customer.  

System Date

If you have made it this far, then that means everything else above has checked out fine.  There is another possible reason why an invoice refuses to post from your agreements and that is date you are logged in with.  Each time you log into ESC, it will check the current system date.  However, if you fail to log out of ESC at the end of the day, and continue using ESC the next day, that date does not get updated.  If it is currently April 1st, but ESC is still logged in with a date of March 31st, then you will not be able to post invoices for April yet.  

You can verify that you are logged in with the correct date by comparing the date ESC displays at the bottom-left of your screen to the date that Windows displays in your System Tray.  

If these are not the same, you can fix this easily by simply logging out of ESC and then logging back in.  You'll see that the Date on the login screen displays the date provided by your computer.  

I've checked all of the issues above and it still won't post!

Now, you've checked everything we've shown you to check and that pesky invoice still won't make an appearance.  What do you do now?  Now it's time for you to contact our award-winning support line experts and let them do the poking around for you.  If you simply create the invoice from scratch instead, this issue may continue to present itself.  So don't hesitate to contact us and put our service to the test!