Invoices

Invoices bill a Main Line Operator (MLO) for container handling, storage, and repairs. An invoice is produced in three steps — create, preview, and confirm — and the figures shown on the finished invoice are the ones calculated the last time it was previewed.

#Before you start

• At least one MLO must exist, with its price master set up, before you can produce a meaningful invoice.
• You need the View permission for Invoices (own records or all records) to see the list and open invoices. You need the Create permission for Invoices to create, preview, and confirm one. Team owners and admins always have access.
• There is no Edit or Delete permission for Invoices — see Current limitations.

#The invoices list

Open Container Depot > Invoices. The page has four tabs:

• Master (open by default) — one row per invoice. Columns: ID (opens the invoice), Date, MLO code, MLO name, Scope, Period, Items (number of line items), Value, Payments (always blank — see Current limitations), Balance, Status. Sorted by ID, newest first.
• Sub-transactions — related transactions. Columns: ID (opens the record), Customer name (opens the customer when one is set, otherwise shown as "-"), Items, Value, Status, Date. Sorted by ID, newest first.
• Credit notes — always empty. See Current limitations.
• Debit notes — Columns: ID (opens the record), Customer name (opens the customer when one is set, otherwise "-"), Items, Value, Payments (always blank), Balance, Status, Date.

There are no export buttons; use the table's own search — which also matches the MLO or customer name — and paging controls (10, 25, 50, 100, 150, or All rows per page). When your organization has business units, the Master, Sub-transactions and Debit notes tabs gain a Business unit column, the ID shows the legal entity's prefix when there is one (PH-7), and the funnel icon opens a filter with Business unit: All business units, your main business only, or a unit with its sub-units; without a choice, the tabs start with the unit chosen in the header, named in the card title. Typing a prefixed number such as PH-7 in the search box finds only that legal entity's invoice 7; typing 7 finds every invoice numbered 7.

Select the create icon on the toolbar to start a new invoice.

#Create an invoice

1. Select the create icon from the Invoices list.
2. Choose the MLO (Customer) this invoice bills.
3. Leave Invoice reference/number on Auto to have OCTO Ops assign the number, or uncheck it and type your own.
4. Set the Date. This is required — if you select Preview without it, you'll see "Missing invoice date" / "Please select an invoice date before previewing this invoice." It defaults to today.
5. Optionally choose one or more Yards. Leave blank to include all yards.
6. Set the Billing period start date and Billing period end date. Both default to today.
7. Choose a Scope: All, Handling only, Storage only, Repairs only, Handling and storage only, or Everything except storage.
8. Optionally enter a Name/memo.
9. When your organization has business units, check the Business unit. It starts with the unit chosen in the header. The invoice bills only the container stays of this business unit: a unit's invoice bills the stays of that unit (not of its sub-units, which are invoiced on their own), and an invoice of your main business bills the stays that have no business unit. A stay of a unit that has since been deactivated is billed on no invoice until you reactivate the unit.
10. Optionally set a Credit period (a number of days, minimum 0).
11. Add the product line items to bill.
12. Optionally enter Description and notes.
13. Select Preview.

Nothing is invoiced at this point. If the form fails validation, you'll see the toast "Check your records before submitting this form again." or a pop-up error with the same text; correct the highlighted fields and select Preview again.

#Preview an invoice

Selecting Preview calculates the invoice and opens the preview page. The calculation runs again every time the preview page is opened or reloaded.

The preview shows:

• MLO details, the yard(s) included ("All yards" if none were chosen) and, with business units, the invoice's Business unit.
• A summary table by container size (20', 40', 45') of demounting, mounting, storage (if the scope includes it), and repairs (if the scope includes it), with rate, quantity, returns, and a total per size, and a grand total column. A repair discount row appears below it if the MLO's price master has one set, followed by a Total row.
• A tabbed "Invoice statements" section:
  • Containers — one row per container with its charges, plus a "Shipper returns" section if there are any, and subtotal/discount/total rows.
  • Shipper Returns — containers with their demounting and mounting amounts and totals.
  • Free Days — only shown when the scope includes storage. Per container: size, date in, date out, and the entitled/brought-forward/used/carried-forward free-days figures.
  • Credit Note — always shown, regardless of scope. Nine fixed rows (free days, handling, and storage, each split 20'/40'/45') showing the discount rate, quantity, and amount, with a Total row.

Select Confirm and Save to finish. You'll be asked to confirm: "Are you sure? You are about to create a new invoice. This action cannot be undone." Confirming saves the invoice and opens it. With business units, the invoice is saved under the business unit chosen on the create form, bills only that unit's container stays, and an invoice of a unit that is, or sits under, a separate legal entity is numbered in that entity's own sequence. With Auto, the invoice takes the next number in the series it shares with cashier receipts, Finance invoices and invoices raised from sales orders, so Container Depot invoice numbers skip the numbers those took. The figures shown on the invoice afterwards are exactly the figures calculated at this preview — nothing is recalculated when you save.

If saving fails, the button stays disabled rather than letting you try again, to avoid creating the invoice twice. The error message comes from the server when one is given, otherwise "Check your records before submitting this form again." The one exception is when someone else is saving an invoice or receipt at the same moment: you see "Another document in this series is being numbered right now. Try again in a moment." Nothing was saved, so the button is enabled again and you can select Confirm and Save once more.

#View an invoice

Open an invoice from any list to see its profile page, headed Invoice: {invoice number}: the invoice's Name, Date, Billing Period, Scope and Yard(s), plus the MLO's code, name and address, and the same "Invoice statements" tabs described under Preview (Containers, Shipper Returns, Free Days if the scope includes storage, Credit Note), built from the figures saved at preview time. With business units, the Invoice table shows the Business unit, and the heading's number carries the legal entity's prefix (PH-7), as it does on the MLO and container profiles' Invoices cards.

The toolbar's Print icon prints the invoice itself; the Print menu in the statements section offers the five statements and credit notes — see Print an invoice below.

#Print an invoice

From an invoice's profile page, use the toolbar's Print icon for the invoice, or the statements section's Print menu for the others:

Every Container Depot print opens with a dark bar at the top that isn't printed: Switch to Dot Matrix (or Switch to Regular) changes the layout for the kind of printer you're using — dot-matrix mode uses larger monospaced type and ruled table lines — and the print icon opens your browser's print dialog. Prints use legacy OCTO Ops' own print layout and type, across the full width of the page. The team's default printer type is set under Settings → Modules → System. Below the bar, your organization's letterhead (logo, name, address and contact details, in one of three layouts) is printed when it's turned on for this document under Settings → Modules → Letterhead. With business units, every print carries the letterhead of the invoice's business unit (see Business units), and the invoice number carries its legal entity's prefix on every print, including the credit notes (PH-7-FCN1, PH-7-FCN2); for such an invoice, the container and vessel statements and the two credit notes do not print the organization's VAT/SVAT numbers either (the free days list never prints them).

#Errors you may see

#Current limitations

• Invoices can't be edited or deleted. There's no Edit or Delete action for this module — once an invoice is confirmed, its figures are fixed.
• The Credit notes tab on the invoices list is always empty. It has no data behind it in this version.
• The Payments column on the Master and Debit notes tabs is always blank; there's no payments feature against Container Depot invoices yet.
• Taxes are not applied to Container Depot invoices. The invoice total always equals the subtotal.
• Line discounts always show as 0.00 on every invoice line.
• Three calculation behaviours are kept exactly as the previous system produced them, by product decision, and won't change without a new ruling:
  1. On the invoice's line items and on any print that shows memos, both the mounting line and the storage line are labelled "Demounting" (only the repair line's label is correct).
  2. The free-days figures shown per container (brought-forward/used/carried-forward) can differ each time a preview is regenerated for the same invoice, even though the totals don't change.
  3. If a preview's date somehow carries a time value rather than a plain date, confirming it fails outright, even when a valid exchange rate exists for that day. Using the Date field on the Create page avoids this.
• Creating an invoice cannot be safely retried after certain failures; if you're unsure whether an invoice was created, check the list before creating it again.
• Notification emails are not sent as part of the invoice workflow.