Understanding Previous Balance on Invoices

General
1

Swipe lets you display a customer’s outstanding balance directly on invoice PDFs with the Show Net Balance and Show Previous Dues settings.

This helps customers clearly understand how much they owe for the current invoice, how much was already pending from previous transactions, and the total amount payable.

Let’s understand these terms:

  • Current Bill Amount: The value of the current invoice only. It does not include any previous outstanding dues.
  • Previous Balance: The amount that was already outstanding before the current invoice was created.
  • Total Amount Due: The final amount payable by the customer.

Total Amount Due = Current Bill Amount + Previous Balance

Here are a few examples to understand better:

Example 1: Understanding the Balance Breakup.

Let’s say a customer already has an outstanding balance of Rs. 2,000 from previous invoices.

You create a new invoice for Rs. 5,000.

Term Amount
Current Bill Amount Rs. 5,000
Previous Balance Rs. 2,000
Total Amount Due Rs. 7,000

This will clearly show how much belongs to the current invoice and how much was already outstanding.

If the customer has no previous dues, the Previous Balance will be zero, and the Total Amount Due will be equal to the Current Bill Amount.

Example 2: Why Different Invoices Can Show Different Previous Balances?

The Previous Balance reflects the customer’s outstanding dues as of the invoice date and may differ from their current outstanding balance.

For example, suppose the following invoices are created for the same customer on the given dates:

  • 17th june: Invoice A for Rs. 200

  • 17th june: Invoice B for Rs. 200

  • 18th june: Invoice C for Rs. 200

Invoice Current Bill Amount Previous Balance Total Amount Due
Invoice A (17th) Rs. 200 Rs. 200 Rs. 400
Invoice B (17th) Rs. 200 Rs. 200 Rs. 400
Invoice C (18th) Rs. 200 Rs. 400 Rs. 600

When Invoice B was created, Invoice A already existed, so the Previous Balance shown was Rs. 200.

When Invoice C was created, both Invoice A and Invoice B already existed, so the Previous Balance increased to Rs. 400.

Please refer to the steps mentioned in the articles shared below to enable the show previous balance and net balance on the invoice PDF:

Web: How to Show Previous Balance in an Invoice on web?

Mobile: How to show net balance on invoices in Swipe Mobile App?

Once enabled, all newly generated invoice PDFs will automatically display the balance breakup.