Sales Receipt vs. Invoice

For Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce and Wix, TruSync posts a Sales Receipt when the order is already paid. The receipt represents money received, which matches what actually happened.

A Sales Receipt carries a reference, shown in QuickBooks as Reference No. It is the payment gateway’s own transaction ID for the order when your store provides one, so you can match the receipt to the payment at the gateway. When there is no transaction ID, it is the order number.

QuickBooks accepts at most 100 characters in this field. TruSync never cuts a transaction ID short, because a shortened ID matches nothing at the gateway. If a transaction ID is longer than 100 characters, TruSync writes the order number instead. If an order number is itself longer than 100 characters, TruSync writes a shortened form that ends in a short code, so different orders still get different references. No reference seen on a real store has come close to the limit — the longest is 27 characters — so this is a safeguard rather than something you are likely to notice.

On those same stores, an order that hasn’t been paid yet posts as an Invoice instead, and is cleared when payment arrives. A Sales Receipt would claim money you don’t have yet.

There is no Sales Receipt or Invoice picker in Sync Settings. The type follows each order’s payment status, so one store can produce both.

A third case sits alongside those two. If you sell to trade customers who order against a purchase order and pay you later, you can mark that payment method as invoiced on terms in Settings → Payments. No money comes through your store for those orders, so they always post as an Invoice, whatever the order’s payment status later says.

These invoices are the one kind that doesn’t go to the generic customer. They go to that customer’s own QuickBooks record, the one you matched to the order’s billing company, so your A/R aging shows who owes you. They also carry the customer’s billing address as the Bill To, the customer’s own payment terms from QuickBooks, and their purchase-order number. See Invoice a customer on account.

An order typed into your BigCommerce admin, rather than placed at checkout, carries no payment method, and the store’s paid flag on it only records that someone entered it. So for these orders, and only these, TruSync doesn’t decide between a Sales Receipt and an Invoice from the paid flag. It holds the order as Invoice or Sales Receipt? and asks you: an invoice on terms to the customer’s own QuickBooks record, or a Sales Receipt deposited into the account you name. This is a change. Before it, an order keyed into your store’s admin with no payment method was handled by your store’s paid flag: if the store marked it paid, TruSync held it as No Payment Method; if it didn’t, TruSync posted it as an invoice to your generic customer without asking. Now neither happens. TruSync asks, for every such order with an amount owing. If an order like this used to go through on its own and now stops, that is why: nothing is broken, and it is waiting for your answer.

There is a standing answer if you want one. BigCommerce calls a hand-keyed order’s payment method Manual, and that row is in Settings → Payments on every BigCommerce store. Mark it Invoiced on terms and every order you key in becomes an invoice to that customer’s own record; map it to a deposit account instead and every one becomes a sales receipt deposited there. Unmapped, each order asks you. See Invoice a customer on account.

Marketplace stores (Amazon, eBay, Walmart) don’t capture payment the way a merchant’s own storefront does — the marketplace collects payment from the buyer and pays the merchant later on its own settlement schedule. TruSync posts these as an Invoice instead.

The invoice records what the marketplace charged for the items and shipping, with sales tax left at zero — the marketplace collects that tax from the buyer and remits it itself as a facilitator, so it is never your revenue and never your liability.

The invoice then sits in Accounts Receivable until the settlement arrives. When it does, TruSync records one Payment covering that settlement, applied across every invoice on it, and creates a Bank Deposit from it, net of marketplace fees. See Bank Deposits & payouts.

• An ordinary order’s due date is the order date. TruSync doesn’t set one; QuickBooks defaults it to the invoice date, or to the invoice date plus the terms on the customer if the customer has any. If you give TruSync’s generic customer terms in QuickBooks, your terms apply to ordinary orders. Amazon Business orders are the exception: TruSync sets their due date explicitly, so it overrides the terms on the customer.
• An invoice for a customer on trade terms isn’t written until the order ships, and is dated that day. TruSync doesn’t set a due date on it either — QuickBooks works that out from the ship date plus whatever terms that customer carries. An order on terms that hasn’t shipped produces no document at all, and isn’t treated as a problem while it waits. See Invoice a customer on account.
• An Amazon Business order is due 30 days after the order date. These are business orders Amazon invoices the buyer for on deferred payment terms, and they settle outside the normal Amazon payout cycle. TruSync reads Amazon’s business-order flag, sets the later due date, and adds Amazon Business (invoiced, deferred payment) to the invoice’s private note, followed by the buyer’s purchase-order number when Amazon supplies one.

The 30 days is TruSync’s assumption, not a figure from Amazon: Amazon doesn’t tell TruSync the buyer’s terms. If a buyer’s terms differ, change the due date on that invoice in QuickBooks.

To find these invoices, search for “Amazon Business” in QuickBooks transaction search, or open the invoice and look at the private note. They are not a separate customer or class, and they are not treated as a problem when they have no settlement yet.

Using the wrong transaction type would misrepresent when and how you were actually paid. A Sales Receipt implies payment happened immediately; an Invoice implies payment is expected later. Matching the transaction type to the real payment timing is what lets your books and your bank deposits agree.

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