openerp-expert-accounting team mailing list archive

["Jan Verlaan \(Veritos\)" <jverlaan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

1. A pro-forma invoice is used to make a "financial offer" to the customer. If the customer agree then the order will be accepted, processed and the proforma invoice get's a real invoice.
2. A pro-forma invoice is used to give your customer a document to prepare import-export documents to calculate the total impact of a sale, before the sale is a fact.
3. Some use it as a pre-payment document before delivery (e.g. webshops) to avoid transactions before payment is received and the salesdeal is a fact. (It is miss-using this functionality as customer has no legal invoice to pay and could not accept it for payments)

In both situations one would not want accounting entries in his OpenERP system. So current build functionality does what is needed for both situations and think this is the right behavior.
It correspondents also to the many links on internet and act equal to e.g. Baan en Sap software regarding no financial transactions.
That means the doc text is wrong.

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pro-forma invoices: documentation doesn't match implementation
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/551543
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Accounting Experts, which is a direct subscriber.

Status in OpenObject Addons Modules: New

Bug description:
I'm not an international accountant, but it seems the term "pro-forma invoice" is ambiguous and can describe 2 kind of invoices, and unfortunately there is an ambiguity about what pro-forma invoices are supposed to be in OpenERP: with or without accounting moves attached.

The manual reads "A Pro Forma invoice doesn’t yet have an invoice number, but the accounting entries on the invoice that’s created correspond to the amounts that Open ERP will record as the customer’s payables": http://doc.openerp.com/book/3/3_7/accounting_workflow.html#open-or-pro-forma-invoices
This is one way of managing pro-forma invoices: an invoice without a number, with accounting entries. It seems to be a disputable practice, and it's forbidden here in France, but in some places people seem to understand "pro-forma invoices" this way however.

But in the implementation of v5.0, pro-forma invoices really are invoices without a number and without accounting entries. French people (among others) understand "pro-forma invoices" this way.

So, either the doc is wrong or the implementation is wrong - but it has to be settled and fixed.
Lionel.