Promotion Invoices

The promotion invoice records merchandise or services you hand over to a customer without charging them: free samples, gifts, courtesy items or merchandise given away as part of a marketing campaign. It deducts inventory and generates its own promotion revenue and cost accounting entry, but unlike a credit invoice it does not create an outstanding balance on the customer's account.

Module: Sales / Accounts Receivable Requires the "Invoices" permission of your user group

What is it and what is it for?

Use the promotion invoice when you hand over items or services to a customer as part of a promotion, a gift, a sample or a courtesy, and you need a formal record of that inventory movement without it turning into a debt owed by the customer. It shares the same form, item table, taxes and addresses as the credit invoice, but it is recorded under its own document type and its own document numbering ("Promotion Invoice"), independent from your regular invoice numbering.

When you save it, the system deducts the inventory of the items handed over just like any sale, and — if your company uses the Accounting module — it generates the matching entry using the Promotion Revenue Account and the Promotion Cost Account configured on the item, its item class or the company, instead of the sales and cost accounts your regular invoices use. This lets you tell, in your financial reports, how much you gave away in promotions without mixing it with your actual sales revenue.

It doesn't always start from scratch: just like the credit invoice, you can generate it from a quote, a sales order or a dispatch, and the system automatically copies the customer, the pending items and the data from the source document.

How is it different from a credit invoice?

	Credit invoice	Promotion invoice
Customer balance	Increases the customer's outstanding balance.	Creates no outstanding balance; the customer owes nothing.
Inventory	Deducts the inventory of the items sold.	Deducts inventory the same way a regular sale does.
Ledger accounts used	The item's or item class's regular sales and inventory/cost accounts.	The item's, its item class's or the company's Promotion Revenue and Promotion Cost accounts.
Numbering	Its own credit-invoice sequence.	Its own promotion-invoice sequence, independent from the one above.
Country availability	Available in every supported country.	Disabled in Ecuador and Guatemala.

Screens in this area

Screen	What it does
Promotion invoice list	Lists all promotion invoices with filters by customer, subsidiary, location and date range. You can customize the visible columns and save your layout; if your company uses electronic invoicing, it includes the Pending to sign variant. From here you create, delete or run the area's report.
Create / Edit	The document's form: the customer's general data, the items table with taxes and discounts, shipping/billing addresses and attached files. It also lets you duplicate an existing promotion invoice.
Details	The same document in read-only mode, with the activity history and the action buttons: print, duplicate, void, view the accounting entry, and the electronic invoicing operations when your country requires them.
Print	The printable format of the document. You can pick from 8 different templates: the classic panel-based layout, three compact variants with different column ordering and four modern-design templates (standard, minimal, elegant and bold accent), plus any custom template your company created under HTML Templates.

How to record a promotion invoice step by step

Open the list and click New. You need the "add" level of the invoices permission; if you don't see the button, ask your administrator for access. You can also start the document from a quote, a sales order or a dispatch by opening the matching button on those documents.
Select the customer receiving the promotional merchandise or service. The system proposes their currency, address and, if applicable, fiscal sequence.
Add the items or services handed over, entering quantity, unit and, if applicable, tax. Each line's price determines the amount that will be posted to the Promotion Revenue account; it is not an actual charge to the customer.
Review the shipping and billing addresses on their tab if they differ from the ones saved on the customer.
Fill in the fiscal data when your country uses fiscal documents: the sequence used to number the document.
Save. The system validates available inventory and the fiscal data before confirming the document. Once saved, you can print it or email it.

Key fields

Field	What it is for
Customer	Who receives the promotional merchandise or service. Determines currency, fiscal sequence and default addresses.
Document date	The document's accounting date, used for the entry and the fiscal document.
Currency and exchange rate	The document's currency and its rate against the local currency; must be greater than zero.
Items	Each line specifies item or service, quantity, unit, reference price, tax and, depending on your setup, division, lot, serial number or bin/location.
Subsidiary / Location	Where the handed-over inventory ships from and which subsidiary the document belongs to for accounting purposes.
Fiscal sequence (NCF)	Which type of fiscal document numbers the document. Only visible in countries that use fiscal documents; it cannot repeat or change once saved.
Source document	The quote, sales order or dispatch the document comes from, if applicable.
Reference and notes	Free-form information to identify the promotion or campaign involved.
Attached files	Supporting documents for the promotion, subject to the contracted edition's limit.

Validations when saving

Non-empty item list, with no lines at zero price or quantity.
Non-negative price on every line.
Exchange rate greater than zero when the document is in a foreign currency.
Location consistent with the subsidiary and available to dispatch inventory.
Unique fiscal document (NCF) and automatic numbering configured, when your country requires it.
Not available in Ecuador or Guatemala: if your company operates in one of these countries, the system blocks the save with the message "Promotion Invoice is disabled".
Lot, serial number or unit of measure required depending on how each item is configured.
Only one default shipping address and one default billing address.

Managing the document

From the details of a saved promotion invoice, depending on your permissions, you can:

Void it, indicating a cancellation reason; a voided document can no longer be edited.
Delete it, if it doesn't yet have an electronically signed fiscal document.
Duplicate it to create a new document from its data.
Print, email or share a public link to the document.
View the associated accounting entry, if your company uses the Accounting module.
Mark it as pending delivery or delivered, if your company uses the warehouse management (WMS) module.

Additional features based on your setup

Electronic invoicing: if your company has it active, the document can be electronically signed and the list shows the pending-to-sign variant.
Tax retentions: if your company has a retention regime configured, retention columns are added per line or per document.
Divisions: an extra column in the items table if your company has this feature enabled for promotion invoices.
Lots, serial numbers, attributes, bins and customs declarations: columns that only appear if your company has those advanced-inventory features active.
Projections: if your company uses the Financial Projections module, the details page shows an estimated collection date, even though the document creates no real outstanding balance.

Availability and permissions

Access is controlled with the same "Invoices" user-group permission credit invoices use, with separate levels to browse, add, edit, delete, void and reprint.
Changing prices on the lines requires the specific "Change prices" invoice permission.
With subsidiaries enabled, each document is tied to a subsidiary and filters by it on lists and reports.
The fiscal sequence / NCF fields only appear if your country uses fiscal documents.
Not available in Ecuador or Guatemala: in those operations, use the credit invoice or the cash invoice instead.

Tips and common mistakes

💡

Set up the Promotion Revenue and Promotion Cost accounts before using this feature. Define them on the item, its item class or as a company default, so your financial reports clearly separate what you gave away in promotions from your actual sales.

⚠️

Don't use the promotion invoice for real sales the customer will actually pay. Since it creates no outstanding balance, if you need to collect on the document you must record it as a credit invoice or a cash invoice instead.

ℹ️

Operating in Ecuador or Guatemala? This feature is disabled in those countries; use the credit invoice or the cash invoice and, if you need to leave the merchandise at zero cost for the customer, adjust the line price on those documents instead.

ℹ️

The document number (NCF) cannot be changed once saved. Double-check the correct fiscal sequence before saving if your country uses fiscal documents.