Overview

Credit Note is a type of financial records representing adjustments to an issued Invoice. It often contains a collection of credit note items which specify the adjustment details. Credit Note is also referred to as credit memo or invoice adjustment.

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Credit Note vs. Credit

Neither credit note nor its items are credits. Credit Note is a notice for invoice changes.

If the issued invoice is not paid yet, the credit note amount will be subtracted from the amount due of the original invoice. Such cases can be seen as either no credit issuance or a credit is issued and immediately applied on the unpaid invoice. Leapfin creates a Credit record with type "adjustment" to handle those cases.

If the issued invoice is already paid when the credit note is created, the credit note amount will be refunded either in cash (i.e. a Refund record) or as credit (i.e. a Credit record with type "issuance"). In some cases, the credit note amount can be partially refunded in cash and partially as credit.

For example, a customer ordered 10 books at $10 each. After sending the invoice, the merchant discovered that there are only 8 books left in inventory. A credit note would be sent to adjust the original invoice by $20. If the original invoice had not been paid, the amount due on would be reduced to $80. If the invoice was paid, the $20 adjustment might be refunded in full cash, full store credit, or combination of cash & credit.

Create a Credit Notes

The following fields are required :

• objectType: type of financial record. For Credit Note, the value is "credit-note".
• id: unique identifier of this record. This is external id received by Leapfin.
• totalAmount: total amount of credit note including tax and discount. A positive value represents a deduction from the original invoice amount.
• subtotalAmount: total amount of credit note excluding tax and discount. A positive value represents a deduction from the original invoice amount.
• currencyCode: 3-digit ISO code, e.g. “USD”, "GBP", etc. This is the primary currency of this record.
• status: current status of this credit note. Acceptable values are:
  • "issued": the credit note is issued to customers.
  • "voided": the credit note is canceled after issued to customers
• date: the date-time of when this credit note is created by payment processor.

The following fields are optional but are commonly need for creating journal entries:

• issueDate: the date-time when this credit note is issued. If not issued yet, the value is null
• description: general description of the credit note.
• exchangeRates: a list of exchange rates used to calculate currency conversions
  • currencyCode: 3-digit ISO code, e.g. “USD”, "GBP", etc. This is the target currency of this record.
  • rate: conversion rate from primary currency to target currency. i.e. amount in primary currency * rate = converted amount in target currency.
• links: directional relationships pointing from this record to other financial records. While Credit Note often expects Credit records pointing to it, the record usually has no links pointing to other records.
  • objectType: type of the target financial record
  • id: unique identifier of the target financial record
• customFields: additional fields (i.e. key-value pairs) related to this record

Sample Data

{
	"objectType": "credit-note",
	"id": "credit_note_001",
	"totalAmount": 200.02,
	"subtotalAmount": 180.00,
	"currencyCode": "USD",
	"status": "issued",
	"date": "2021-01-16T19:20:30",
	"issueDate": "2021-01-16T19:25:10",
  "description": "a sample credit note",
  "exchangeRates": [
    {
      "currencyCode": "EUR",
      "rate": 0.84
    },
    {
      "currencyCode": "GBP",
      "rate": 0.73
    }
  ],
  "links": [],
  "customFields": {
    "field1": "value1",
    "field2": "value2"
  }
}

Query a Credit Note

Credit Note records are stored in VW_FT_CREDIT_NOTE table. It can be accessed via Snowflake Data Sharing and Access.