Update prices in invoice drafts

Hello everybody,

I have a number of invoice drafts pending; in the meanwhile I introduced some change in prices. How can I update prices to present levels without having to touch and check every single invoice position?

Cheers,
Wolf

There is no such functionality in standard modules.
Normally if you agreed a sale in a price, the invoie will come in the same price no mather if new prices have been introduced.

True.
This is how it was in the good old days. I think things are changing now. Delivery times may get much longer, prices are rising much more quickly than during last ~15yrs.

In computer hardware business, prices always have been volatile, we have the expression ā€œTagespreisā€ (ā€œtodayā€™s priceā€) in German for products where prices are subject to daily modification.

Recent days I found another application for such an ā€œprice updateā€ feature: mistakes. I always make many mistakesā€¦ ):
I forgot to set the correct price list for a customer, so all prices were wrong in that sale. And of course - lazy bone I am - Iā€™d like the computer to do the correction work.

I do not think we should have shortcuts for fixing mistakes. The proper fix is to set the price list of the customer so the right prices are set.

If you suffer the pain of updating all the invoices prices to the right one I bet you will never forget to set the right price list for a new customer.

Also the quotation step is there to agree with the customer about the prices.

Sorry, I cannot agree with you. People are making mistakes, all the day. Repeatedly.

You guys (programmers, nerds, geeks ā€¦) are very good in doing things in an extremely precise matter. Thatā€™s your special gift. The rest of us does not have that gift. Weā€™re making mistakes all the day, and we want software to support us with this shortcoming.

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There are other sectors too, I have it in my business conditions. Long running projects like creating a building most of the time has this clause. For example steel prices will change over time and when reaching a difference of say 10% in price, the customer is invoiced with the higher price.

So, I think there can be a wizard which does the changes for you, but by default that wizard is switched off, like the ā€˜cancel customer invoiceā€™ which you have to switch on explicitly.

There is no point to create the invoice in advance for such long running projects for which price can change.

Today a customer called me and told me that there was a mistake in my invoice, and he was right - embarrassing. I corrected that mistake in ā€œarticlesā€ long time ago, but as Iā€™m using collective invoices, a quite-a-time-ago order was invoiced with a wrong price.

Iā€™d really like my IT to prevent me from such mistakes. IMHO, when posting an invoice, the system should check if prices are up to date and alert differences to the user.

My customer is a really nice fellow, so no harm caused. But in a situation with a difficult customer, where the business relation has been under stress before, such an incident could be serious.

Sorry to come again with this.
Next day, same customer. Another two mistakes in my invoice. Both of them had been corrected in ā€œproductsā€ months ago. But still are present because of partial deliveries.

My customer still was full of understanding. Told me they are paying lots of money for a terrible ERP which causes trouble all day. I recommended trytonā€¦

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We can not update automatically prices of sale order once they have been quoted because it is the deal agreement.

Automatic updating prices is something nobody wants (I think), but I can imagine a check when an invoice is posted to compare the prices against the current product prices. Adding a difference percentage as range, when the price is outside the range, an UserWarning pops up with the question to continue. This can be handled the same as deleting customer invoices on the company. So when users did not activate it, no check is done.

Also the deal agreement can say that price rises from 15% or more will be recharged to the customer.

Definitively!

I beg your pardon, but I cannot agree. This applies only if you went the formal way with offer and acceptance. But there are many different ways to deal with customers. My agreement with my cooperators is ā€œfixed surcharge percentage on cost priceā€, and certainly I cannot imagine what else is in the world.

The invoice has no clue about sale price. But more over I donā€™t see why the accountant should question the quoted price.

This the goal of the new blanket agreement.

So customers can never complain as they do not know your cost :face_with_diagonal_mouth:
But mainly cost price change on every reception so you must use the one at some point in time. So in Tryton it is on sale quotation.
Anyway the main problem is to left invoices in draft for too long.

Thatā€™s why Iā€™m using collective invoices. I dont have to annoy my customer with petitesses.

But I really do not understand why this feature should do harm. It should be switchable, so those who feel annoyed by alerts which pop up in case of doubt can switch it off. The others will be grateful.

Leave the choice to the users. They are different.

We are talking about extreme small companies from one to 10 persons. A few of them are office workers and do basically everything, from sales / purchases / shipments to accounting. So when one of them sees a price on the invoice which they think isnā€™t right, they will ask about it.

Iā€™m talking about circumstances beyond your control. For example I sold a steel product in February this year. I have to purchase the raw material for it. The minimum delivery time was 6 months and during that time prices rise and rise, so my supplier increased the invoiced price. Iā€™m also added that extra amount to the invoice I send my customer. In the agreement there is a article saying that price rises from 15% or more the invoiced prices will be corrected.

I donā€™t think thatā€™s the problem because the prices are coming from the sale or purchase. When you have a long waiting shipment (from your supplier) in the meantime prices can rise. Even when you have configured Tryton to create an invoice after shipping, the prices wonā€™t change.

For how long do you leave those invoices in ā€˜draftā€™? And Iā€™m a bit lost now. Letā€™s see if Iā€™m understanding it correctly:

  1. sell a product
  2. ship the product, an invoice is created
  3. some weeks later more of the same product are sold to the same customer
  4. product is shipped, the invoice lines will be added to the existing invoice
  5. supplier rises prices with 20%, the prices of the product are updated by you
  6. some days later more of the same product is sold again to the same customer
  7. product is shipped, this invoice lines will be added to the existing invoice
  8. invoice is send to the customer

I havenā€™t checked it, but IMO you should have different invoice lines where the first two lines should have the same price, but the last one should be 20% higher because you sold that product after the price rise. And now you want to have the first two lines also updated?

The above case is a completely different from my case about delivery times and circumstances.

Yes it is. There are so many different situations. My case is about mistakes. Iā€™m making mistakes all the day, and I may not be all alone with this.

So if you write that, you must implement it at the sale level because it is clearly not standard.

Apriori to set your price you need to have a quotation of your supplier so even if he takes times your price should be guarantee by the quotation.
Now if your supplier has similar clause, I guess you have to implement them at the purchase level.

You could design a custom module to select invoices, click a button or a wizard, that update lines and prices. -same as sales, etcā€¦-