Skip to main content
In a pharmacy the till is the rule and an invoice is the exception. Reach for Billing only when money is not changing hands at the counter — for everything a customer pays for in front of you, use the till. See Ring up a sale.

​
When you would actually use this

Four situations, and they are the whole list:
  • A surgery or company you supply on account and bill monthly rather than per collection.
  • A school, care home or hostel buying a standing order in bulk.
  • A delivery round where the goods leave before the money arrives.
  • A corporate buyer who needs a document — a purchase-order number, a tax line, something their accounts team can file.
If none of those describe the sale in front of you, close this page. A counter sale put through Billing never reaches your takings, your cash-up or your stock draw.
These screens are shared with the other ClinikEHR editions, so their wording is clinic-flavoured. You will meet “patient”, “clinic” and “client” where your pharmacy would say customer and pharmacy. They behave exactly as described here, and there is no separate pharmacy billing screen to go looking for — this is it.

​
What you’re looking at

Billing is a collapsible sidebar entry with three children. Overview is the money picture and Invoices is the working list. Insights is headed Financial Insights and reads “Financial analytics and insights will be shown here.” — it is a placeholder, so do not wait for it to fill. The trends live in the reports workbench. Each invoice row carries a status badge: The row menu is headed Invoice Actions: View Details, Edit Invoice, Download PDF, Send Invoice, Record Payment, View Payments and Delete Invoice. Record Payment is absent on a cancelled or fully paid invoice, and View Payments appears only once there is a payment to view. A pharmacy that has never invoiced sees empty tabs and zeroes, not an error — and an invoice form whose item picker finds nothing, because it searches your service list. That is the usual reason a first invoice feels broken when it is not: build the service list first.

​
Raise an invoice

1

Select New Invoice

The Create Invoice form opens. It has no Status field — see the note below.
2

Choose who it is for

Select Client * is required; its picker searches with “Search for a client…”. This is the shared wording — the person or organisation you are billing.
3

Set the dates

Invoice Date * is required. Due Date is optional — “Payment expected by this date” — and it is the only thing that ever tips an unpaid invoice into Overdue. Leave it blank and nothing chases itself.
4

Add the lines

Pull items in with the service picker (“Search services to add…”), or add a one-off with Custom Item. Each line has Description, Type, Qty, Unit Price, Disc % and Total, all editable — so a one-off discount never changes the underlying service price.
5

Set discounts, tax and notes

Under Notes & Discounts: Global Discount (%) — “Applied to subtotal before tax” — Tax Rate (%), and Notes (Optional) for anything the buyer must read, such as their purchase-order number.
6

Save it

You get Invoice created successfully, then an Invoice Created dialog offering Download PDF, Send Invoice and Print Receipt. The invoice is on the Invoices tab, already Pending.
A new invoice is Pending, not Draft, and the create form has no status control at all. That is deliberate: a draft is invisible to every awaiting-payment view, and invoices left quietly in draft went unchased. If you are assembling a bill over several days, create it and then set it to Draft with Edit Invoice, where Status appears.

​
Send it

Select Send Invoice from the row menu. The dialog explains itself: “A branded email with invoice {number} attached as a PDF will be sent to the recipients you choose.” Send to offers the buyer’s email on file, A different email, or Both. The last two reveal Other emails — “Up to 3 addresses, separated by commas.” That choice is what makes account billing work: a care home’s manager gets the delivery note and their accounts office gets the bill, from one send. You are told where it went — Invoice emailed to {address}. Download PDF gives you the same branded document for the counter, confirmed with Invoice PDF downloaded.
Your bank account, mobile money and other offline channels print on the invoice only if you filled them in under Settings › Payment Details and switched them on. Skip that and the invoice goes out with no way to pay it — see Payment details.

​
Record what they pay

Payments are recorded on the Payments screen — New Payment, then either a direct payment or one against an existing invoice. A part-payment is allowed: the invoice moves to Partially paid and the remainder stays outstanding. Money at the counter never comes through here. Till takings settle themselves and appear on the sales dashboard.

​
Cancel, do not delete

An invoice with a payment recorded against it cannot be deleted. Delete Invoice is disabled, reads “Has payments — cancel instead”, and its tooltip says “Invoices with recorded payments can’t be deleted”. Cancelling keeps the invoice and the payment reconciled, which is what your books and your buyer both need. Deleting is only for an invoice raised entirely by mistake before anyone paid against it, and it asks first — “This action cannot be undone.”

​
Who can do this

Role decides whether Billing opens at all. A Cashier / Till Operator reaches only POS and Sales, and a pharmacy technician’s sidebar stops at the counter and the stockroom — for both, the whole section is absent. Permission decides which figures inside it you are allowed to see. On top of the role bundle each person carries an access tier — Own till, Whole branch or All branches — which decides how much of the business their figures cover. Both money gates withhold rather than zero: a cost or margin figure becomes “Hidden — needs authorisation from your clinic owner.”, and the net figures become “Net position is hidden — needs authorisation from your clinic owner.” A zero would read as a bad month rather than as a boundary — see Track expenses and your net position. Neither gate bites on the invoice screens themselves; they govern the till and stock surfaces the last two rows point at. Two behaviours surprise people:
  • Enforcement is opt-in, per person. A colleague never saved in the permissions sheet is unrestricted, and the sheet warns “Saving starts enforcing”.
  • A denied action is recorded; an allowed one is not. Hiding Billing from a sidebar is a convenience, not a security boundary.
See Staff permissions.

​
Check it worked

  • The invoice is on the Invoices tab with the buyer, the total and a Pending badge.
  • View Payments on the row lists what has been received against it.
  • After sending, every recipient you chose has the email with the PDF attached.
  • Once settled, the badge reads Paid or Partially paid, and the payment appears on the Payments tab.

​
Common issues

Expected. These three screens are shared across editions and have not been relabelled for pharmacies. Read “patient” or “client” as your customer or institutional buyer, and “clinic” as your pharmacy.
That is the default, and the create form has no Status field. Reopen it with Edit Invoice and set Draft there if you want it held back from the awaiting-payment views.
Delete Invoice is disabled because money has been recorded against this invoice. Cancel it — the record of the money stays, which is the point. If the payment itself was the mistake, deal with the payment first on the Payments screen.
Other emails takes three at most. Send twice, or use a distribution list of the buyer’s own.
Your offline payment channels are empty or switched off. Fill them in under Settings › Payment Details, then re-send — see Payment details.
Your service list is empty, or every service on it is inactive. Add one under Services. Stock items are sold at the till, not invoiced from the catalogue.
You are signed in on a role whose sidebar stops short of the money screens — a cashier gets POS and Sales only. Ask an owner or manager to change your role, not your permissions: this one is decided by the role.

​
FAQ

No. Only a till sale moves stock. An invoice is a document saying money is owed; if the goods have physically left, ring them through the till as well or record the movement in Inventory, or your shelf count will drift.
You can, but you almost never should. A walk-in pays at the counter, and a counter sale put through Billing never reaches your takings or your cash-up. Part-pay at the till instead — the balance shows under Debts on the customer’s record, where it can be chased and settled. See Money on account.
Only the Due Date. Pending means issued and awaiting payment; it becomes Overdue once that date passes with a balance outstanding. An invoice with no due date stays Pending for ever, which is why it is worth setting one on account customers.
Emailing the invoice delivers a PDF, not a checkout. To take a card, send a payment link instead — that needs a connected card account under Settings › Online Payments. See Online payments.
Because you do not hold View cost prices and margin. Cost and margin are withheld as text — “Hidden — needs authorisation from your clinic owner.” — rather than rendered as a zero, because a zero reads as no margin rather than as a boundary. Ask an owner or manager.
Whatever is set under Settings › Billing for the whole pharmacy — it is not per invoice. Change it there and every money figure in the product follows. See Currency and tax.