Voiding a Sales Invoice
Meridian's clerk once generated the February rent invoice for Atlas Legal Partners twice. The duplicate was posted before anyone noticed — real document, real accounting, completely wrong. Deleting posted paper is forbidden (and shouldn't be possible in any accounting system worth trusting); the correct tool is Void: the invoice stays on file, clearly cancelled, its accounting removed.
Access you'll need. Voiding 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 void them.
Void, unpost, or credit memo?
| Situation | Right tool |
|---|---|
| The invoice should never have existed (duplicate, wrong customer) and nothing is applied to it | Void |
| Caught it minutes after posting; needs a quick fix and repost | Unpost to Draft, edit, post again |
| The invoice is partly right, or the customer already received/paid it | Credit Memo for the difference (or the whole amount) |
| The invoice has been filed with a tax authority — its E-Invoice Status is Submitted or Accepted | Credit Memo — void and unpost are both blocked, and no setting changes that |
Voiding, step by step
Clear any applications first
An invoice with money or credit applied refuses to void: "Cannot void a Sales Invoice with applied payments or credits. Reverse the applications first." Un-apply the receipt or credit (their balances return to the source documents), then void.
Use the Void action and say why
A void needs a reason and a void date — "Duplicate invoice issued in error" is Meridian's honest note on the Atlas duplicate. The reason lives on the record permanently.
What happens
Status becomes Void; the accounting entries and tax records are removed (a voided invoice contributes nothing to revenue, tax, or AR balances); customer-facing PDF files are deleted; and the document locks: "Voided Sales Invoices cannot be modified."
That's exactly what Meridian's clerk did with the Atlas duplicate: invoice MSI001032 now stands voided with the reason "Duplicate invoice issued in error" on the record. The real February invoice is untouched, the numbering sequence has no gap, and anyone opening the duplicate sees at a glance what it is and why. Behind the scenes, voiding a posted invoice runs the full unpost cleanup first — accounting entries removed, tax records cleared, a cash-sale invoice's auto-created receipt unwound — and then marks the document Void. Voiding a draft is simpler still: nothing was ever in the books, so only the status and the reason change.
The rules that keep voids clean
Each guard below is the exact message you may meet, with the remedy beside it:
| The message | What to do |
|---|---|
| "Please provide a reason for voiding this invoice." | The reason is permanent documentation — say what actually happened. |
| "Please provide a Void Date." | The books need to know when the document was cancelled. |
| "Cannot void a Sales Invoice with applied payments or credits. Reverse the applications first." | Money or credit is attached — un-apply it (the balances return to the receipts and memos), then void. Or reconsider: an invoice someone paid usually wants a credit memo, not a void. |
| "Voided Sales Invoices cannot be modified." | A voided document is a closed chapter — return it to Draft if it genuinely needs to live again. |
| "Posted Sales Invoices cannot be deleted. Void the invoice instead." | Deletion is for drafts only — and voided invoices can't be deleted either; the record stays forever. |
| "Cannot unpost or void this Sales Invoice because its auto-generated Cash Receipt could not be removed: {0}" | A cash-sale invoice's receipt is stuck — usually bank-reconciled. Remove the reconciliation first, then void. |
Common mistakes to avoid
| Mistake | Why it hurts | Do this instead |
|---|---|---|
| Un-applying a customer's real payment just to force a void | The money ends up floating as Unapplied Cash while a genuine sale disappears from the books | Issue a credit memo — corrections to paid invoices never go through Void |
| Voiding when only one line was wrong | The whole invoice vanishes from revenue; you re-key everything and the customer gets two confusing documents | Credit memo for the difference — the invoice stands, the correction is explicit |
| A vague void reason ("mistake", "wrong") | Two years later, nobody — including the auditor — knows what happened | One honest sentence: "Duplicate invoice issued in error" answers the question forever |
| Voiding instead of unposting a same-day typo | A permanent VOID record for something a quiet unpost-fix-repost would have handled | Unpost to Draft while the document has gone nowhere, fix, repost |
| Expecting void to notify the customer | The customer still holds the PDF you sent — your books changed, their inbox didn't | Tell them the invoice is cancelled and reference the replacement or credit |
Voided by mistake?
A voided invoice can be returned to Draft — the void reason and date clear (field history preserves them), and you have an editable document again to fix and repost. The closed-books gate applies as always.
What also disappears at void time: the customer-facing PDF files are deleted from the record (a cancelled document shouldn't circulate, even accidentally), where unposting merely revokes the public link and keeps the file. One more reason to be sure Void is the right tool before clicking it.
Where to go next
- Creating a Credit Memo — the correction tool for sent invoices.
- Posting a Sales Invoice — including the unpost path.
- Voiding & Refunding Receipts — the money side works differently.
Frequently asked questions
Don't void it — un-applying their payment just to force a void leaves their money floating. Issue a credit memo instead; the credit can offset their next invoice or be refunded.
No — the number stays with the voided document, exactly as an auditor expects. The next invoice takes the next number in sequence.
Removing accounting from a closed period would change reported numbers, so the closure gate blocks it. Correct a closed-period invoice with a credit memo dated in the current open period instead.
Status VOID, zero accounting entries (the Accounting Transactions list is empty), void reason and date on the record, and the document locked against edits. If any display total looks odd on a voided record, trust the Accounting Transactions list — it's the ledger truth.
Both. Voiding a draft just marks it Void with your reason — useful for abandoning a document you want kept on file rather than deleted. Voiding a posted invoice does the full job: accounting removed, then Void. (Drafts you simply don't want can still be deleted outright.)
It's unwound — unposted and deleted along with the invoice's own entries, since the two were one event. If the receipt has been bank-reconciled, the void is blocked until the reconciliation is removed; the message names the receipt problem explicitly.
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