Invoice creation

What type of invoice are you trying to create? Are you billing for goods or for services, etc. ?

John,
Thanks for getting back to me. I am billing for services.

Nigel, invoices in lawson are created in batch. If you are manually entering them you begin by starting a batch with AP25, then enter the invoice using AP20. When you navigate to AP20 there will be more than one option for entering the invoice, typically you would use AP20.1 which is a single invoice entry. You must have process levels and accrual codes set up in the AP setup in order for the invoice to post properly to your GL. The bottom of the AP20.1 screen is used to code the distribution of the invoice. If you are using a non-Lawson program to create invoices you can have your IT staff develop a program to append information into the Lawson I/O files for automatic upload. There are two files, DBAPAPI and DBAPAPD, the "I" holds the invoice information ie, payee, date amount etc. the "D" holds the invoice distribution information. The distribution file totals for an invoice must equal the amount in the invoice file. Then you simply run AP520 in test mode first! When you are confident the information is correct you run it in update mode and the invoices will be posted to your Lawson subledger immediately and general ledger once you run the AP175 and GL190, generally set up in your nightly run.

Jason,
Thank you.
I need to clarify: I am speaking about creating AR invoices for a service industry company.
Are your instructions for A/R or A/P?
Thanks again
Nigel

Nigel,
Jason was guiding you on creating AP invoices.
You want to create AR invoices.
With Lawson you have several options:
1. Use AR alone for to track invoices which you have manually prepared, using Lawson AR42 for entry of the invoice, and AR30 for cash entry and application against the invoices.
2. Use BL module for preparation of the invoices, which then become AR receivables; use AR30 as above.
3. Use BR module to to prepare "service" invoices, based on using AC (activity management) billable transactions (think "time & expense" / professional services); BR invoices are interfaces to AR and you'd also use AR30 as above.

Based on your type of business, you're probably best suited to option 3, assuming you have a large billable workforce, and you're using billing rates, tracking hours against clients/contract/projects, etc.

However, if you already manually prepare invoices, and just want to use lawson for tracking outstanding AR and for cash application, you're probably going to want to use option 1.

John,
Jason,
I must be left brained or otherwise severely challenged.
I am not getting the creation of the A/R invoices!!!
I have decided that the BL module is best suited for our needs.
The system is not allowing me to create the batch. It tells me that the "BL info for the A/R cust. must be complete" and it highlights the cust #. Sometimes, when I select a diff. cust #, I get past this error msg. but now get "item does not exist"
Where do I put my inv. desc? Our inv has a wide field for the desc and a column for the fees.
What am I doing wrong??
We do not use "ship to"

Guys,
I have managed to fix the BL520 error:"BL info..complete"
Can you tell me:
1) Where on the BL20.1 do I add the amt billed?
2) I want to process inv without items. Where do I add inv description

If you want to use BL20 without items, you will need to specify the "line type" of "X" (special order), enter a (dummy) item number along the with description.

Enter the amount billed in the "unit price" field, quantity of 1 and unit of measure 'EA' (each).

Thanks John,
I am 99.99999999% there.
Can you say what the foll means and what I need to do?
"cannot enter edit option;invc opt not = company"

Which screen are you on when you get that message?

BL00.1 invc tab. I am trying to check yes to run invc print edit.

That means that you have selected the 'Invoice level' as Process Level, so you need to set the invoice print edit flag on BL01 (for each invoicing process level) rather than BL00 (for the company).

How do i include remittance instructions on my A/Rinvoices.
I created invoices using BL20.1.
I was thinking of using comments but was not sure if that would work.

Yes, you would use comments.

John, thank you.
I apologize for all the questions. I am now getting the hang of creating the A/R invoices.
1) Can the font be enlarged? If yes, how.
2) How do I orient invoice to portrait?
3) Can logos be inserted
4) My banking instructions came out twice; below shipment/shipdate etc and below order chgs/invoiced/qty etc. Is this because my prt code on BL 21.3 is "B"

In order to do anything fancy with printing (e.g. logos), you'd need to investigate one of the third-party printing solutions which interfaces w/ Lawson--such as MHC,BottomLine, etc.