Understand how invoice records work in Sanka, including drafts, send rules, payment matching, receivables, lifecycle protection, and AI checkpoints.
Last updated: May 29, 2026
The Invoice object stores customer-facing billing requests. Use invoice records to ask for payment after an order, subscription, delivery, or approved manual billing decision, then track send status, due dates, payment matching, receivables, and accounting review.This reference explains what an invoice should contain, how it connects to orders and payments, and what to check before creating, sending, matching, or correcting invoices with AI, actions, workflows, CSV, integrations, or manual entry.
Claude/Codex
Create invoice drafts for the orders that were confirmed this week. Show the customer, amount, issue date, due date, send readiness, and any missing billing or payment cycle fields. Do not send them yet.
Preparing invoice drafts in SankaI prepared invoice drafts from the confirmed orders. Please review customer, line items, issue date, due date, payment cycle, billing cycle, send rule, and approval requirements before sending.
Ask for another invoice check...
What an invoice record represents
An invoice record represents a request for the customer to pay a specific amount by a specific due date. It should be based on a clear billing source, such as an order, subscription, or approved manual billing decision.Common fields include:
Invoice number or record ID
Customer company or contact
Record owner
Invoice status
Issue date, due date, and billing period
Line items, quantities, unit prices, tax, discounts, shipping, currency, and total amount
Payment cycle and billing cycle when your send rules require them
Related order, subscription, payment, document, message, or journal entry
Source details from UI, CSV, integrations, actions, workflows, or AI-assisted creation
Invoice fields and statuses can be customized by workspace admins, but lifecycle-critical statuses and rules should remain available so sending, approval, lock, reporting, and AI workflows can behave consistently.
How invoices connect to other records
Invoices connect commercial agreement, customer communication, collection, and accounting.
Companies and contacts: the customer, billing recipient, or payment contact
Orders and subscriptions: the accepted commercial source for the invoice
Items: products, services, quantities, tax, discounts, and total amount
Payments: incoming payments matched or reconciled against the invoice
Journal entries: accounting records created from invoice and payment activity when your workspace uses accounting flows
Documents and messages: invoice PDFs, scheduled sends, sent messages, and related files
Tasks and tickets: collection follow-up, customer questions, or correction requests
If an invoice is missing a related order, payment, document, or message, check the association and action history before treating it as a missing record.
Create invoice drafts
Create invoice drafts first, then review them in Sanka before sending or scheduling.
Sample prompt
/sanka Create invoice drafts from these orders. Keep them as drafts, summarize the source order, customer, line items, amount, due date, payment cycle, billing cycle, and any blockers before sending.
For deal or quote based work, use this shape instead:
Sample prompt
/sanka Create invoices for these HubSpot deals. First create or reuse Sanka orders, then create invoice drafts from those orders. Do not send anything until I confirm the drafts.
This keeps the flow aligned with business records:
Deal or quote confirms a sales opportunity.
Order records the accepted commercial agreement.
Invoice requests payment for the agreed billing period or amount.
Payment records the collection result.
Use invoice statuses and send rules
Sanka invoices use standard lifecycle statuses:
Draft: still editable and not sent
Scheduled: scheduled to be sent later
Sent: sent to the customer
Paid: payment has been collected and matched according to your team's rules
Delay/Dunning: overdue or being followed up
Uncollectible: no longer expected to be collected
Open Workspace > Object Settings > Invoice > Send Rules to decide when invoices can be sent or scheduled.Send rules control:
Which action is allowed: send now or schedule send
Which invoice statuses can use that action
Which fields must be filled before the action can run
Whether customer company fields such as payment cycle and billing cycle are required
For invoices, scheduled, sent, paid, dunning, and uncollectible records are lifecycle-protected from normal edit, archive, and delete operations. If an invoice was sent with the wrong contents, create a correction or cancellation workflow instead of deleting the billing history.
Match payments and manage receivables
After a customer pays, record the payment and match it to the invoice. This lets your team see whether the invoice is unpaid, partially paid, paid, overdue, or being followed up.
Sample prompt
/sanka Review these payments before matching them to invoices in Sanka. Show the customer, payment date, payment amount, invoice candidates, unpaid amount, possible bank fee or short payment, duplicate payment risk, and records that need manual review. Do not mark invoices as paid yet.
Common matching patterns include:
One payment for one invoice
One payment covering multiple invoices
Multiple payments for one invoice
Partial payment where the invoice remains open
Overpayment or duplicate payment that needs manual review
Short payment caused by fees, withholding, currency differences, or customer error
Creating a payment record does not always mark an invoice as paid automatically. The invoice should only move to paid when your matching, reconciliation, action, workflow, or manual review confirms that the collected amount satisfies the invoice according to your team's rules.
Expected behavior
When an invoice is created successfully:
It appears in the Invoice object list unless it is archived or filtered out by the current view
Customer, owner, source, issue date, due date, status, line items, tax, currency, and total amount are saved
Related orders, subscriptions, payments, documents, messages, and journal entries can be associated with it
Draft invoices remain reviewable before customer-facing send actions
Send and schedule actions follow the configured send rules
Status, approval, and lock rules protect invoices according to the configured lifecycle
Payments can be matched to the invoice for receivables tracking and reporting
Invoices do not bypass missing billing fields, send rules, approval rules, permissions, or lock rules. If required information is missing, the invoice may stay in draft, fail to send, or require manual correction before the next action.
Troubleshooting
An invoice draft was not created from an order
Check whether the order exists, whether the user has permission to create invoices, whether required invoice fields are present, and whether the action or workflow completed successfully.
The invoice cannot be sent
Check send rules, invoice status, customer recipient fields, sender settings, PDF template, required company payment cycle or billing cycle fields, approval state, and lock state.
The invoice amount is different from the order or subscription
Compare line item quantities, unit prices, discounts, tax settings, shipping, billing period, currency, and rounding. If the invoice was generated from a subscription rule, review the rule and meter values.
A payment is recorded but the invoice is still unpaid
Check whether the payment is associated or reconciled with the invoice, whether the paid amount covers the invoice total, and whether fees, short payments, partial payments, or multiple invoices are involved.
An invoice is locked or cannot be archived
Check whether its status is scheduled, sent, paid, dunning, or uncollectible. Protected invoice history should be corrected with a cancellation, credit, or adjustment workflow rather than deletion.
AI cannot decide whether this is a bug
Ask AI to compare the invoice source, status, send rules, lock rules, action history, payment associations, and audit trail. Treat it as a possible bug only after confirming the required fields, permissions, rules, and associations are correct.
Checkpoints
Before sending, scheduling, matching, or marking paid, check the customer, PDF template, issue date, due date, line items, tax, currency, approval state, lock state, payment matching state, remaining unpaid amount, and audit trail.
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Review invoice lifecycle
Logs
Search logsAll actionsAll dates
ID / ActionDateTarget / ItemChangeActor
3Invoice draft created2026/05/20 10:00Invoice 1233Created from confirmed orderClaude integration
2Invoice sent2026/05/21 09:00Invoice 1233Sent to customer contactFinance user
1Payment matched2026/05/25 14:30Invoice 1233Matched payment and confirmed remaining balance is 0Sanka user
Invoice review should include the source order or subscription, customer-facing send state, payment matching state, and remaining receivable amount.
