Cash flow, debts, period closing

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InOut — Part 3: Cash flow, debts & period closing

Introduction

This document covers the financial side of InOut: the cash book (automatic and hand receipts/payments), the period summary, customer & supplier debts, opening balances, collecting/paying debts through payment requests, and period closing. It is for accountants and business owners. After reading it you understand the store's money picture, know where to collect and pay debts correctly, and can close a period safely.

Money flow overview

flowchart TD
    S["Sales orders<br/>(money collected, by payment date)"] --> IN["INCOME"]
    R["Supplier refunds<br/>(return orders)"] -->|automatic| IN
    MR["Hand receipts<br/>+ collect requests"] --> IN
    P["Supplier payments<br/>(purchase orders)"] -->|automatic| OUT["EXPENSE"]
    MP["Hand payments<br/>+ pay-out requests"] --> OUT
    IN --> PR["Gap = Total income − Total expense"]
    OUT --> PR
    IN --> DEBT["DEBTS"]
    OUT --> DEBT

1. The cash book

Go to Orders → [IO] Cash Flow. Every money movement meets here:

  • Automatic income: money customers paid on sales orders; supplier refunds (return orders).
  • Automatic expense: payments to suppliers (purchase orders).
  • Hand receipts/payments: vouchers for everything else (electricity, wages, deposits, old debts collected…).
  • Vouchers written by payment requests: when you collect a customer debt or pay a supplier through a payment request (section 4), each real money movement writes one receipt/payment voucher on that party.

The screen has four tabs — Receipts/Payments (hand vouchers), Sales orders, Purchase orders, Return orders — all filtered by the date range at the top.

Record a hand receipt or payment

  1. On the Receipts/Payments tab, click Create receipt/payment.
  2. Choose the type (Receipt / Payment) and the party: Customer, Supplier (from the list) or Other (type a name). Required, so the debt lands on the right party.
  3. For a customer, the For order (optional) box lists the customer's unpaid orders. Money for an order → pick that order — it is posted to the order itself and the order's debt goes down. Leave it empty only for money that belongs to no order (a deposit before ordering, an old debt); the system warns but does not block.
  4. Enter the amount (> 0, base currency), date, method, category (e.g. Wages, Utilities), note → Save. The code is generated (CE-YYYYMMDD-XXXX).

If it worked, the voucher appears in the tab and the summary figures change. Hand vouchers can be edited / deleted (buttons at the end of the row); every action is logged.

Only hand vouchers can be edited or deleted. Vouchers from purchase/return orders are changed on that order; vouchers written by a payment request are handled (cancelled, refunded) on that request.

2. The summary

Pick a date range at the top of the Cash Flow screen to see:

Figure Meaning
Sales revenue Money customers actually paid on sales orders, by payment date (minus what was refunded)
Hand receipts Total of hand receipt vouchers (including those written by collect requests)
Supplier refunds Total refunds recorded on return orders
Total income Sum of the three lines above
Purchase payments Total payments recorded on purchase orders
Hand payments Total of hand payment vouchers (including those written by pay-out requests)
Total expense Sum of the two lines above
Profit Total income − Total expense — the cash gap for the period, not accounting profit
Sales − purchases gap Sales revenue − Purchase payments

Because revenue follows the payment date, an order placed at the end of August but paid in early September lands in September — matching the money that actually reached your account.

3. Debts

Click Debts from the Cash Flow screen. There is a party search box and a date range filter.

Customer debts (customers owe you)

  • Lists customers with orders not fully paid: order count, order total, paid, order debt, hand vouchers, net debt.
  • Click View detail for each order (total, received, outstanding, payment status), its items and costs, and the customer's hand vouchers.
  • Net debt = order debts − hand receipts + hand payments (of that customer).

Supplier debts (you owe suppliers)

  • Lists suppliers with purchase orders not fully paid.
  • Net debt = purchase order debts + opening balance − return refunds − hand payments + hand receipts.

Opening balance (suppliers only)

Use it when you already owed a supplier before using InOut:

  1. On the Debts screen, open Supplier Opening Balance → Add opening balance.
  2. Pick the supplier, enter the amount and the date → Save. The amount is added to the supplier's debt.
  3. Entered wrongly? Delete that record. Both create and delete are logged and subject to period closing.

Customer debts come straight from sales orders, so there is no customer opening balance. For a customer's old debt from before the system: create a matching manual order in S-Cart, or track it through receipts as the customer pays.

4. Collect customer debts / pay suppliers through payment requests

Instead of waiting for money and typing a voucher, create a payment request right from the debt: the customer gets an online pay link (or you record a hand transfer), while a supplier payment goes through someone with the pay-out right clicking "Paid out". When money really moves, the receipt/payment voucher appears in the book and the debt goes down by itself.

flowchart LR
    D["Debt detail<br/>(customer or supplier)"] -->|amount + create button| R["Payment request"]
    R -->|customer pays by link / hand entry| IN["Receipt<br/>customer debt down"]
    R -->|pay-out right clicks Paid out| OUT["Payment<br/>supplier debt down"]

Steps:

  1. Go to Debts → View detail of the customer or supplier.
  2. At the top, the amount box is pre-filled with the net debt; change it to collect/pay only part.
  3. Click Create collect request (customer) or Create pay-out request (supplier). The new request opens.
  4. Customer: send the pay link (valid 7 days), or click Received when the customer transferred by hand. Supplier: the accountant transfers the money, then someone with the pay-out right clicks Paid out.

The full request lifecycle, pay-out rights and refunds: see Payment requests.

Specifics when used for InOut debts:

  • The button appears only if you have the Payment requests permission (on top of InOut's).
  • The request uses the store's base currency — the cash book has one unit.
  • Vouchers written by a request cannot be edited/deleted in the cash book; cancel or refund on the request and the matching voucher is written for you.
  • Refunding money collected by link → writes a payment voucher back to the customer.

5. Period closing

Closing locks the figures of a past period: nobody can change a document in it, not even by accident.

Close & reopen

  1. On the Cash Flow screen, open Period Closing → enter the closing date → click Close period. Every document dated ≤ that date is locked; the section shows how many periods are closed.
  2. Need to fix old figures? Click Reopen on that closing date, fix, then close again.
  3. Any account allowed on the cash flow screen can close/reopen; the action records who did it.

Rule: cut-off by document date

Closing is checked against the document's date, not the day you act. Closed up to 31 May? Today you still cannot edit a payment voucher dated 20 May, but you work normally with documents dated 1 June.

Blocked inside a closed period: adding/removing costs, adding/removing purchase order products, cancelling orders, adding/removing payments (by payment date), adding/removing refunds (by refund date), creating/editing/deleting hand vouchers, adding/deleting opening balances, and recording / refunding money on sales orders dated in that period.

Money a payment gateway already collected through a payment request is never refused (it really arrived): the voucher is dated today with a note of the original date so you can reconcile.

Conditions & Rules (know before you act)

Hand receipts/payments:

  • The type, party group and specific party are required — to attach the debt correctly.
  • Amount > 0 in the base currency; date required.
  • A customer receipt attached to an order is posted to the order, and refused if the order is not in this store or does not accept the money (e.g. more than outstanding).
  • Only hand vouchers can be edited/deleted; those from purchase/return orders or payment requests cannot.
  • When editing: period closing is checked for both the old and the new date — moving a voucher into a closed period is blocked too.

Opening balances:

  • Suppliers only.
  • Amount > 0; date required; subject to period closing on that date.

Collect / pay-out requests:

  • Needs the Payment requests permission; amount > 0; base currency only.
  • A customer collect link expires after 7 days; create a new request afterwards.

Period closing:

  • No future dates — the period has not ended.
  • Cannot close a date already inside a closed period.
  • Cut-off always follows the document date; with Multi-Store, each store has its own closing dates.

Q&A

Q1: Is "Profit" in the summary the real profit of the business?

→ It is the cash collected − cash paid gap for the period, not gross/net accounting profit (no cost of goods sold, depreciation…). Use it for a quick view.

Q2: A customer paid for an order — where do I record it?

→ On that order — from the order screen, or by creating a receipt and picking the order in For order. Never record one amount in both places; it would be counted twice.

Q3: Can I edit a voucher generated from a purchase/return order?

→ No. Fix it on the original purchase/return order (delete the payment/refund and record it again); the voucher follows.

Q4: Why can't I delete a voucher "written by a payment request"?

→ Because that money went through a request with its own lifecycle (link, expiry, refund). Cancel or refund on the request; the counter-voucher is written for you.

Q5: Why can some documents still be edited after closing?

→ Because they are dated after the closing date. Closing only locks documents dated ≤ that date.

Q6: Closed up to 31 May — how do I reopen to fix a voucher dated 20 May?

→ Under Period Closing, click Reopen on the 31 May closing, fix, then close again.

Q7: Why can't I close up to tomorrow?

→ A period that has not ended cannot be closed. Only dates ≤ today.

Q8: Can I enter an opening balance for a customer?

→ No. Only suppliers have opening balances. For an old customer debt, create a matching manual order in S-Cart and track it like any order.

Q9: I record a receipt for a customer — does their debt go down?

→ Yes. A receipt on the right customer is deducted from their net debt; if you picked an order, it goes straight against that order.

Q10: Does deleting a hand voucher lose the trail?

→ No. The history keeps who deleted it, when, and the voucher's contents.

◀ Part 2 — Return orders · Index · Part 4 — Sales orders ▶

📅 Last updated: 2026-10-03 · ✍️ Author: GP247