Cloning a Sales Invoice
Most of Meridian's invoices look a lot like last month's: same tenant, same suite, same lines. Clone with Lines turns any existing invoice into a fresh draft copy — header and lines included — so a repeat bill takes seconds instead of a re-type. (If the repetition is truly monthly-forever, a recurring template is the even-lazier, even-better tool; cloning shines for the almost-regular cases.)
Access you'll need. Cloning and posting Sales Invoices requires the Accounts Receivable v2 permission set (AR clerks & managers) or Accounting Admin v2 (system administrators). The Accounting Controller v2, Accounts Payable v2, and Read Only v2 sets can view invoices but not create or post them.
Cloning, quickly
Open any invoice and click Clone with Lines
Draft, posted, even voided — any invoice can serve as the source; the copy is always a clean new document.
Review the copy before saving
Everything business-relevant carries over: customer, entity, reference, description, payment terms, dimensions, and all the lines with products, quantities, prices, and tax profiles. Now make it this period's bill: check the invoice date and due date, and update period-specific text ("June 2026" doesn't belong on July's invoice).
Save as a new draft and post
The clone starts life as an ordinary Draft — nothing about the source document is touched. It takes the next number from the entity's sequence, derives its own accounting period from its date, and posts like any hand-made invoice.
Clone and Create Credit Memo — the same machinery, two directions
It helps to know that Clone with Lines and Create Credit Memo are the two modes of one copying engine. Clone produces a same-signed twin — a fresh draft that bills the same things again. Credit produces the mirror — the same lines flipped to credit lines, totalling negative, linked back to the source as its Original Invoice. Pick by intent:
| Clone with Lines | Create Credit Memo | |
|---|---|---|
| You want to… | Bill something similar again | Take back (part of) what was billed |
| The lines arrive… | As-is — same charges | Flagged as credit lines — same amounts, opposite direction |
| Link to the source | None — the clone is independent | Original Invoice set — the credit stays with what it corrects |
| Document number | Next in the invoice sequence | Next in the entity's separate Credit Memo sequence |
| Details | This article | Creating a Credit Memo |
What deliberately does NOT copy
- The document number — sequences stay gapless; the clone gets its own.
- Status and accounting — the clone is a draft with no entries, whatever the source was.
- Payments, credits, applications — those belong to the source's history, not the copy.
- Generated PDFs — the clone produces its own when posted or on demand.
The rules that catch stale clones
A clone is an ordinary draft, so it faces the ordinary checks — but clones trip them in predictable ways, because copied values go stale. The messages, and the clone-specific causes:
| The message | The usual clone-shaped cause |
|---|---|
| "Due date cannot be before the invoice date. Please review the payment terms and due date." | You moved the invoice date to this month but the copied due date still says last month — the single most common clone stumble. Update both. |
| "Invoice Date must fall within the selected Accounting Period date range." | The date changed but a copied period didn't follow — clear the period and let it re-derive from the new date. |
| "Entity is inactive and cannot receive new transactions…" | The source predates a reorganization; its entity has since been retired. Point the clone at the live entity. |
| "Ledger is inactive and cannot receive new transactions…" | Same story on the ledger side. |
| "GL Account is inactive. Activate it or select an alternative." | A copied line still bills to an account that's been retired since the source was created. |
Common mistakes to avoid
| Mistake | Why it hurts | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Posting the clone without reading it | Stale dates, stale text, stale prices — the customer receives last month's bill with this month's number | Date, text, amounts — the three-line review before every post |
| Cloning to "re-issue" an invoice you voided as wrong | The clone copies the wrongness faithfully | Fix the draft after cloning — the clone is a starting point, not a verdict |
| Cloning monthly, forever | Twelve manual chances a year to forget — the exact problem templates solve | Promote the pattern to a recurring template; keep cloning for the irregulars |
| Expecting the source's payments to carry over | They never do — applications belong to the source's history | The clone starts unpaid; it collects its own payments |
| Changing the entity but not re-checking the lines | GL accounts, sequences, and currency are entity-scoped — a cross-entity clone can carry accounts the new entity refuses | After an entity change, re-pick line accounts and confirm the currency |
Where to go next
- Recurring Sales Invoices — when the same bill repeats on a schedule.
- Creating a Sales Invoice — the from-scratch path.
- Posting a Sales Invoice — what happens when the clone goes live.
Frequently asked questions
Recurring template when the bill repeats predictably (fixed rent, monthly). Clone when a bill repeats irregularly — an occasional extra service, a similar-but-not-identical charge, or a one-off that happens to resemble an old invoice.
The Clone with Lines action exists on credit memos too — the copy keeps the credit-line flags. But before cloning a memo, ask whether the situation really is a second credit; memos are corrections, and corrections are usually one-offs.
The clone lands with the source's entity and customer — change either on the draft before saving if needed (watch entity-scoped things: GL accounts, sequences, and currency all follow the entity).
It copies the lines' tax profiles — the instructions for how to tax each line — not the calculated amounts. Tax is computed fresh when the clone posts, using the rules in force on its date. If tax rates changed since the source, the clone's tax will correctly differ.
You updated the invoice date but the copied due date stayed behind — the guard reads "Due date cannot be before the invoice date. Please review the payment terms and due date." Update the due date (or re-pick the payment term so it recalculates) and post again.
Cloning creates a new invoice, so it needs create rights on AR documents: the Accounts Receivable permission set or Accounting Admin. Controllers and Read Only users can open the source but not produce copies.
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