Documentation/ Checking the document header/ The amounts
The amounts: net, taxes and total
Three checks hold up a document's validation. Knowing which one failed tells you where to look, and saves going over the whole record when the problem is on one line.
On this page
A full stop or a comma when typing an amount
Amount fields take a full stop or a comma as the decimal separator, both when typing and when pasting from a spreadsheet. Typing 12.50 or 12,50 gives the same result, and the amount is saved in the Spanish format.
How the amounts relate
The shape of it is always the same:
| The lines added up, with their discounts | = | Net amount |
| Net amount × tax rate | = | Tax amount |
| Net + taxes + charges − withholding | = | Total |
On top of that come, where they exist, the overall discount, extra charges such as carriage or packaging, the equivalence surcharge and any tax withheld.
The three checks
| Status | What it tested | Where to look |
|---|---|---|
| Review totals | Net + taxes = total | The header |
| Review items sum | The lines added up = net amount | The items tab |
| Review VAT | The tax amounts added up = total tax | The tax breakdown |
When net plus taxes does not come to the total
| Cause | How to check |
|---|---|
| An extra charge that was not read: carriage, packaging, handling | Look for something added at the foot of the document. |
| An overall discount taken off the total | Check whether the document discounts after tax. |
| Tax withheld that was not picked up | Common on professional services and rent. |
| An equivalence surcharge that was not allowed for | Check whether the document applies it. |
| A figure read wrongly | Hold each one up against the original. |
When the lines do not add up to the net
- A line is missing, or was read with a zero amount.
- A line discount was not applied when its amount was worked out.
- Something is in the net but not as a line: carriage or surcharges the document does not set out in the body.
- A duplicated line, from a document that repeats the detail on two pages.
This is the one most often settled on the items tab rather than in the header.
When the tax breakdown does not agree
It nearly always happens on documents with several tax rates: an invoice with goods at 21 % and at 10 % has two nets and two tax amounts, and the disagreement turns up when one of them was read wrongly or is missing.
Also when the document carries the equivalence surcharge, which adds another amount on the same net.
You put it right in the tax table, and once that is fixed, Update amounts on that same table carries the new figures through to the net, the VAT total and the document total. It is explained in VAT, withholding tax and deductions.
Differences of a penny or two
A difference of one or two pennies is rarely a reading error: it is usually rounding. Plenty of issuers work the tax out line by line and round on each one, so the total does not come to exactly the same as applying the rate to the whole net. It is right on the original document and there is nothing to correct.
Documents that legitimately do not add up
Not everything that fails to add up is a reading error. Some documents do not add up because that is how the issuer made them:
- Invoices with partial credits folded in.
- Documents with deposits taken off the total.
- Utility invoices with regulated items that do not follow the net-and-tax shape.
- Documents with amounts in another currency.
In those cases the warning warns but does not block: once you have checked the original, the document can be approved as it stands. If the difference has to be taken up with somebody, write it down in a query.