Proforma invoice statuses
A proforma invoice moves from a draft the issuer is still editing, through the billed company's answer, to the point where the real VAT invoice is issued. This page lists each status, who can move a proforma out of it, what is recorded and who is told.
Overview#
The issuer of a proforma is a merchant or the platform; the billed party is a tenant, or a merchant for its own platform subscription. The accept and dispute steps below are for tenants. The issuer drafts and sends; the billed tenant accepts or disputes; the issuer finalizes an accepted proforma, which leads to the real VAT invoice. Every move is made with a button on the proforma's detail page, is recorded in the proforma's audit log, and is refused — never repeated — if the proforma is no longer in the status the move starts from. What a proforma is and who sees it are covered in Proforma invoices.
Statuses#
| Status | Meaning | Visible to the billed tenant? |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | The issuer is preparing it and can still edit it | No |
| Sent | Sent to the tenant, waiting for an answer | Yes |
| Accepted | The tenant agreed to it | Yes |
| Disputed | The tenant pushed back, with a reason | Yes |
| Finalized | The issuer has turned the accepted proforma into a VAT invoice request | Yes |
| Void | A status the system can hold; no action sets it | Yes |
Proformas the platform raises automatically for subscriptions are created already Sent; see Subscription pricing and billing cycles.
stateDiagram-v2
state "Draft" as draft
state "Sent" as sent
state "Accepted" as accepted
state "Disputed" as disputed
state "Finalized" as finalized
[*] --> draft: issuer creates
[*] --> sent: subscription billing
draft --> sent: issuer sends
sent --> accepted: tenant accepts
sent --> disputed: tenant disputes with a reason
disputed --> draft: issuer reopens
accepted --> finalized: issuer finalizesTransitions#
| From → to | Button | Who | What is recorded | Who is notified |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Draft → Sent | Send to tenant | The issuer | Sent at | The billed tenant's users who can accept proformas (Tenant Owner, Admin, Accountant) |
| Sent → Accepted | Accept (takes effect at once, no confirmation step) | The billed tenant | Accepted at, Accepted by | Nobody |
| Sent → Disputed | Dispute, then Submit dispute with a reason | The billed tenant | Dispute reason (required, up to 500 characters; a blank reason is refused) | The issuer's users who can issue proformas — the merchant's, or platform operators for a platform-issued proforma |
| Disputed → Draft | Reopen | The issuer | The proforma becomes editable again and the tenant no longer sees it until it is sent again; the dispute reason is shown only while it is Disputed, and Sent at is updated on the next send | Nobody |
| Accepted → Finalized | Finalize invoice | The issuer | Finalized at, Finalized by, Issuance record | Nobody |
"The issuer" means users of the issuing merchant with the issue permission (Merchant Owner, Admin, Accountant), or a platform operator for a platform-issued proforma; "the billed tenant" means Tenant Owner, Admin or Accountant of that tenant. Supervisors can do none of these. Permissions are listed on Proforma invoices.
Rules#
- Only an accepted proforma can be finalized. A disputed one must be reopened, corrected, sent and accepted first.
- What finalize means depends on the issuer. For a merchant, the platform records that the merchant owes a VAT invoice; the merchant issues it on its own e-invoice system, and the obligation closes when that invoice reaches the platform and is matched. For the platform, finalize requests a VAT e-invoice that the platform issues itself; it is refused when the proforma total differs from its transaction amount, or when that transaction already has an e-invoice request — as every subscription billing proforma does, whose VAT invoice comes from subscription billing instead. See Finalize an accepted proforma invoice.
- Accepted and Finalized are final. An accepted proforma can only move on to Finalized, and a finalized one cannot move at all; check a proforma before accepting it.
- Statuses only change through these actions.
- Repeated clicks are harmless. Refreshing the page after an action is refused and sends no second notification.