Creating a deposit invoice — and deducting it on the final invoice

On larger orders you do not want to see money only after the event. The deposit invoice brings in part of the order value up front — and Univents calculates it from the accepted quote instead of making you assemble items and amounts by hand. At the end the final invoice deducts the deposit again, so your customer does not pay twice.

The video shows how to derive a deposit invoice from a quote, deduct it on the final invoice and have follow-up documents created automatically.

Play video2:18

You’ll find the individual steps written out below as well.

Creating a deposit from an accepted quote

A deposit invoice always comes from a quote with the status Accepted — no matter how it got there: signed online in the customer portal, marked as accepted in the back office, or confirmed with an uploaded scan.

You will find the action in the event's Documents tab: open the menu on the quote card and pick Create deposit invoice.

One click opens the Create deposit invoice dialog. There you decide how large the deposit is:

• Percent — the amount is calculated from the quote. In the Percentage (%) field you enter, say, 30.
• Amount — you enter a fixed sum (Amount (net)).

Alongside sits the option Show offer positions on the PDF. It is ticked by default: the quote's line items then appear as a This deposit relates to block on the deposit invoice, so the customer can see what the deposit refers to.

Create deposit produces a draft. Univents splits the amount across the quote's tax rates: for a quote with mixed rates — food at 7 %, service at 19 % — you get one line per rate with the matching share. VAT and the final total come out right without you doing the maths.

The document starts like any other: with your default layout for invoices and the service period from the quote or the event. You can open it, check it, adjust it and send it with Save and send.

You cannot go past the order. If you have already invoiced a deposit or an interim payment for the same event, Univents counts it towards the total. If the amount you enter is too high, the dialog tells you: “The amount exceeds the remaining balance — existing deposit and interim invoices count towards it.”

The final invoice deducts the deposit

Once the event is over you create an invoice as usual and adopt the quote's line items. How that works is described in Convert a Quote into a Delivery Note or Invoice.

You do not have to work out the deduction yourself: as soon as a deposit or interim invoice has been issued, it sits in the final invoice as a negative line item when you open it — one line per tax rate, carrying the deposit's number and date. If you cancel the deposit later, its deduction disappears from the draft again on its own.

Deducting another invoice by hand

Not every advance payment runs through a deposit invoice. Some businesses write a regular invoice for it — and still want it offset on the final invoice.

For that, the draft of an invoice shows an Advance payment card above the line items: “Deduct already paid invoices for this event from this invoice.” With Deduct advance payment you pick the invoice to offset. Univents inserts it as a negative line item — correct sign, one line per tax rate.

• An invoice that is already offset is marked Already deducted in the picker, so you cannot deduct it twice.
• When every paid invoice of the event is offset, the card tells you so.
• The card only appears on a draft final invoice. There is nothing to deduct on a deposit or interim invoice, and an issued document is locked.

Deposits larger than the final invoice? If the deduction cannot work out, Univents blocks the send and points you to a credit note for the difference instead.

Doing it automatically on acceptance

Instead of creating the deposit by hand every time, you can have it created when the quote is accepted. The switches live in Settings under Documents, at the very bottom, in the Automatische Folgedokumente section:

• Create deposit invoice on acceptance — turns the automatic deposit on.
• Deposit percentage — how much of the order value falls due up front (default 30 %).
• Only from order value — a threshold in euros from which the deposit applies at all, say 10,000. The value refers to the gross total of the accepted quote; empty or 0 means: always create a deposit, regardless of value.

At most one deposit is created per order. And you know beforehand: the confirmation dialog on acceptance names the deposit with its percentage — and, when a threshold is set, the order value from which it applies.

Right above sit two more switches: Create invoice draft on acceptance and Create delivery note draft on acceptance. With them on, all drafts appear in one go — you mark the quote as accepted and afterwards find the deposit invoice and the other documents as drafts in the Documents tab.

The automatic deposit is available from the Quotes plan.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to use a percentage, or can I use a round amount? Both. A percentage is handy when the deposit should grow with the order value; a fixed amount when you agreed on a flat sum.

The customer has more change requests after the deposit. Create a new quote version as usual and have it accepted. Univents creates the follow-up documents from the new version and marks the old drafts as replaced — so it stays traceable which deposit belongs to which version of the quote.

Can I change the deposit invoice afterwards? As long as it is a draft, yes — like any other document. Once it is issued it is locked; corrections then run through the usual cancellation paths.

Can the customer pay the deposit online? Yes — provided a payment integration is connected and you leave Allow online payment on for the invoice. The document behaves like any other invoice.