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Sales Receipt vs. Invoice

TruSync posts orders to QuickBooks as either a Sales Receipt or an Invoice, depending on whether the money has arrived. TruSync decides this for each order, not once for the whole store.

Sales Receipt — the order is paid

For Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce and Wix, TruSync posts a Sales Receipt when the order is already paid. The receipt represents money received, which matches what actually happened.

The reference on a Sales Receipt

A Sales Receipt carries a reference, shown in QuickBooks as Reference No. It is the payment gateway’s own transaction ID for the order when your store provides one, so you can match the receipt to the payment at the gateway. When there is no transaction ID, it is the order number.

QuickBooks accepts at most 100 characters in this field. TruSync never cuts a transaction ID short, because a shortened ID matches nothing at the gateway. If a transaction ID is longer than 100 characters, TruSync writes the order number instead. If an order number is itself longer than 100 characters, TruSync writes a shortened form that ends in a short code, so different orders still get different references. No reference seen on a real store has come close to the limit — the longest is 27 characters — so this is a safeguard rather than something you are likely to notice.

Invoice — the order isn’t paid yet

On those same stores, an order that hasn’t been paid yet posts as an Invoice instead, and is cleared when payment arrives. A Sales Receipt would claim money you don’t have yet.

There is no Sales Receipt or Invoice picker in Sync Settings. The type follows each order’s payment status, so one store can produce both.

Invoice — a customer on trade terms

A third case sits alongside those two. If you sell to trade customers who order against a purchase order and pay you later, you can mark that payment method as invoiced on terms in Settings → Payments. No money comes through your store for those orders, so they always post as an Invoice, whatever the order’s payment status later says.

These invoices are the one kind that doesn’t go to the generic customer. They go to that customer’s own QuickBooks record, the one you matched to the order’s billing company, so your A/R aging shows who owes you. They also carry the customer’s billing address as the Bill To, the customer’s own payment terms from QuickBooks, and their purchase-order number. See Invoice a customer on account.

Orders you keyed in yourself

An order typed into your BigCommerce admin, rather than placed at checkout, carries no payment method, and the store’s paid flag on it only records that someone entered it. So for these orders, and only these, TruSync doesn’t decide between a Sales Receipt and an Invoice from the paid flag. It holds the order as Invoice or Sales Receipt? and asks you: an invoice on terms to the customer’s own QuickBooks record, or a Sales Receipt deposited into the account you name. This is a change. Before it, an order keyed into your store’s admin with no payment method was handled by your store’s paid flag: if the store marked it paid, TruSync held it as No Payment Method; if it didn’t, TruSync posted it as an invoice to your generic customer without asking. Now neither happens. TruSync asks, for every such order with an amount owing. If an order like this used to go through on its own and now stops, that is why: nothing is broken, and it is waiting for your answer. See Invoice a customer on account.

Invoice — always, for marketplace stores

Marketplace stores (Amazon, eBay, Walmart) don’t capture payment the way a merchant’s own storefront does — the marketplace collects payment from the buyer and pays the merchant later on its own settlement schedule. TruSync posts these as an Invoice instead.

The invoice records what the marketplace charged for the items and shipping, with sales tax left at zero — the marketplace collects that tax from the buyer and remits it itself as a facilitator, so it is never your revenue and never your liability.

The invoice then sits in Accounts Receivable until the settlement arrives. When it does, TruSync records a Payment against the invoice and groups those payments into a Bank Deposit, net of marketplace fees. See Bank Deposits & payouts.

Due dates and Amazon Business orders

The 30 days is TruSync’s assumption, not a figure from Amazon: Amazon doesn’t tell TruSync the buyer’s terms. If a buyer’s terms differ, change the due date on that invoice in QuickBooks.

To find these invoices, search for “Amazon Business” in QuickBooks transaction search, or open the invoice and look at the private note. They are not a separate customer or class, and they are not treated as a problem when they have no settlement yet.

Why this distinction matters

Using the wrong transaction type would misrepresent when and how you were actually paid. A Sales Receipt implies payment happened immediately; an Invoice implies payment is expected later. Matching the transaction type to the real payment timing is what lets your books and your bank deposits agree.

FAQ

Can I choose which transaction type TruSync uses for a store? No — there is no setting for it. Marketplace stores (Amazon, eBay, Walmart) always post Invoices. On other stores, each order’s payment status decides: a paid order posts as a Sales Receipt, and an unpaid order posts as an Invoice that is cleared when payment arrives. The exception is a BigCommerce order you keyed into the store’s admin with no payment method, which TruSync asks you about instead of using the paid flag. The one thing you can set is per payment method, not per store: a payment method marked invoiced on terms in Settings → Payments always posts an Invoice, because no money comes through your store for it. See Invoice a customer on account.

Why did one order on my Shopify store post as an Invoice? That order hadn’t been paid when it synced. Paid orders post as Sales Receipts; unpaid orders post as Invoices and are cleared when payment arrives.

What does the Reference No. on my Sales Receipt show? The payment gateway’s transaction ID for that order, or the order number when the store has no transaction ID. If the transaction ID is longer than QuickBooks’ 100-character limit, TruSync writes the order number instead rather than cutting the ID short.

How do I tell an Amazon Business invoice from a normal Amazon one? Its due date is 30 days after the order date instead of the order date itself, and its private note says “Amazon Business (invoiced, deferred payment)”. Orders placed before this was added are not retroactively marked.

Why is the due date on my marketplace invoice the order date? TruSync doesn’t set a due date on ordinary orders, so QuickBooks uses the invoice date (or the customer’s terms, if the customer has any). The marketplace collected payment when the buyer paid, so the money is owed to you from then.

Does a Sales Receipt or Invoice change how tax is handled? Yes indirectly — Sales Receipt stores (your own storefront) collect and remit their own tax, while Invoice stores (marketplaces) post at zero tax since the marketplace already remitted it. The invoice is for the item and shipping price the marketplace charged; the facilitator tax on top of that is not recorded as your income, because it never was.

What closes a marketplace invoice in QuickBooks? The settlement does. When the marketplace pays you, TruSync records a payment against each invoice in that settlement and then groups those payments into one Bank Deposit matching what hit your bank. You’ll see a payment against each marketplace invoice dated to the settlement. See Bank Deposits & payouts.

If Amazon orders are Invoices, do I need to send my customers an actual invoice? No — this is purely how the transaction is recorded in QuickBooks, not a document sent to the buyer.