Credit control
Credit control decides what happens when creating or issuing a sales invoice would take a customer past their credit limit. Only customers with a credit limit on their record are ever checked — set one in the customer's Edit window (see Edit or archive a customer).
Before you begin
- You need permission to manage organisation settings (Owner or Administrator).
- The exposure figure used is exactly the one their account page shows in its credit-limit block: what the customer owes as at today (the same figure as the Aged Receivables report — a credit note counted once, whether applied or not) plus any invoices dated after today. A customer in credit has room to spare.
Choose a policy
Go to Settings → Credit control and pick one:
- Informational — the user sees a warning, but is never interrupted.
- Warn and confirm (the default) — the warning is shown and the user must explicitly confirm ("Create anyway" / "Issue anyway") before proceeding.
- Block — creating or issuing over the limit is refused. Users holding the Override credit limits permission (Owner, Administrator and Finance roles by default) can proceed by recording a reason, which is written to the audit trail along with the amounts involved.
Changing the policy is itself recorded in the audit trail.
[Screenshot required: Credit Control settings page with the three policy options]
Where the check happens
- Creating an invoice — the editor checks before the form is submitted, using the invoice total you have built so far.
- Issuing an invoice — checked again at issue time (the authoritative check), using the invoice's balance against the customer's outstanding balance at that moment.
Emails, credit notes, quotes and payments are never affected — only invoice creation and issue.