If we’ve created multiple sales orders for the same customer during one month, he may want to receive a single invoice for all these sales orders at the end of the month (i.e. billing period). Or, he may want to receive a separate invoice for each of his sales orders at the end of the month but in a single email. In this article we will discuss these options in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations.

Post and print multiple sales orders as a single invoice

Let’s talk through the first option first. We can post and print multiple sales orders for a customer as a single invoice using the built-in Summary order feature. An invoice referring to several sales orders is called Collective invoice.

Steps: On the All sales orders form we need to select all sales orders belonging to the current billing period and then to open the Posting invoice form. Under the Summary order field group on this form, select Order, Invoice account or Automatic summary for Summary update for.

When selecting Order, you need to choose which sales order should be included in the invoice header, whereas Invoice account takes the first of the selected sales orders. Both options produce a single collective invoice per customer, defined with the Invoice account field on a sales order.

Automatic summary is by default set up to post as a single invoice those sales orders with the same Invoice account and Currency code, but you can change these settings in:
Accounts receivable -> Setup -> Account receivable parameters.

By posting, only one invoice will be created with lines belonging to the selected sales orders’ lines.

You can post and print collective invoices to a customer’s contact emails or to a selected printer. You can also preview them or download them in browser (the File print destination). You can also use Docentric AX Free Edition for Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations to save generated invoices on Azure blob storage in batch, or to send them to customers as nicely designed emails.
Learn more about Free Edition >>

Post and print multiple sales orders as separate invoices

However, some businesses must process each of sales orders for their customers separately, which means that one sales order always produces exactly one invoice. The challenge that then arises is how to distribute all the created invoices at the end of the month to each of the customers.