Record a supplier invoice

What a supplier invoice is for

A supplier invoice is an invoice you have received from someone you buy from. Recording it in Worklog does three things: it keeps track of what you still owe, it records the input VAT you can claim back (if you are VAT registered), and it counts the cost in your books the moment it comes in, not only when you pay it.

You will find these under Purchases, on the Supplier Invoices screen.

Before you start

It helps to have your supplier saved under Suppliers, but you can also just type the name.
If you already made a purchase order for this order, you can link the supplier invoice to it and pull the supplier and items across automatically. This only shows if you have a purchase order on the go.
Input VAT only shows if you have entered your VAT number under Tax and SARS. If you have not, the supplier invoice is captured without VAT.

Record the supplier invoice

Open Supplier Invoices under Purchases and tap the + New button in the top right.
If this is for a purchase order you already made, tap the 🛒 Link to a purchase order button at the top and pick the order. Worklog fills in the supplier and the items for you. This step is optional and only appears if you have purchase orders.
In the Supplier field, type or pick the supplier you bought from. If you pick a saved supplier who has payment terms set, Worklog fills in the Due date from those terms for you — you can still change it.
In "Supplier's invoice / reference number", type their reference off the invoice. This is optional but makes it easy to find later.
Set the Invoice date to the date on the invoice. Add or adjust the Due date if there is one, so Worklog can flag the supplier invoice as overdue once that date has passed.
Under Line items, tap + Add line item (or pick one from Add from your items), then type a Description and fill in the Qty and the Unit price (R). Or, for a lump-sum invoice, skip the lines and type the figure straight into Total on the invoice.
If you are VAT registered, answer VAT on this invoice: 15% VAT if the supplier charged VAT, No VAT if they didn't. Only a VAT-registered supplier can charge VAT, and their invoice shows it — the VAT is claimed on your VAT201 on it as their tax invoice, so keep it. Worklog answers for you when the supplier has a VAT number saved, or when it came from a photo that shows the VAT, and you can change it. If nothing answers it, it won't save until you choose — Worklog doesn't guess, because claiming VAT a supplier never charged is something SARS takes back.
Check the summary box. It shows the subtotal, the input VAT you can claim (with the percentage the app is using), and the balance you owe including VAT.
Tap "Save supplier invoice".

💡The supplier invoice is saved as unpaid for the full amount. Already paid some or all of it? Log that payment in Banking → + Add and pick this supplier invoice where it asks what the payment is for — that settles it, or brings down what is owed. Money is logged in that one place, so it is never entered twice.

💡When you save, Worklog also gives the supplier invoice its own number (like SINV-2026-0001). That is separate from the supplier's own reference — it is Worklog's number for it, and you can sort your supplier invoices by it. Older ones may show an SI- number instead.

💡Every line needs a SARS category — tap the amber 🏷️ Set category tag on the line, or pick a supplier with a usual category from the 👤 List first, so each line you add starts filled in. It won't save until each line has one. Total on the invoice is the amount before VAT; any VAT is added on top. A supplier invoice with no lines has no category, so its cost lands under Uncategorised on your Profit & Loss — for a lump-sum invoice, one line with the amount before VAT and its category puts the cost under the right heading.

💡If Shared costs is on in Business details and the supplier charges VAT, each line also asks what to do with its VAT, the same three answers as a purchase in Money Out: claim it, Shared cost — claim part of it, or No VAT to claim. Stock and materials start on claim it, everything else on shared. A shared line claims this tax year's share (the year the invoice is dated in), cut to the cent, and the rest of its VAT is a cost in your profit. The answers are saved with the invoice and can't be changed afterwards, like its lines, so check them before you save. A repeating supplier invoice keeps only each line's answer, never a figure: the one Worklog makes overnight takes the share of the day it is made (a line you never answered takes the usual one, and with no share set for that year it claims none of the VAT). With several lines, every line needs a price before any is shared.

Keep the supplier's tax invoice

Under the summary on the new supplier invoice, Keep the supplier's tax invoice has two buttons: 📷 Photograph it and 📎 Attach the file. The file saves with it. If you are VAT registered, this is the document behind the input VAT it claims, and SARS can ask for it for five years.

💡A saved supplier invoice without one shows No tax invoice kept with this supplier invoice when you open it, with the same two buttons, so you can add it later. Once it is kept, it shows Tax invoice on file. Opening the file needs the Proof of purchase permission.

Read a supplier invoice off a photo

Open Quick Log, tap 📷 Photo / PDF and add the supplier's invoice, then tap ✨ Log it.
When Worklog can read it as a supplier invoice, a card offers Check and save the invoice →. Tap it.
The New supplier invoice form opens with the supplier, the date and the lines filled in, and the photo already kept as its tax invoice. Anything Worklog couldn't settle is listed at the top under Read from the photo — please check.
Check every line and figure, then tap "Save supplier invoice". Nothing is on your books until you do.

See and open a saved supplier invoice

On the Supplier Invoices screen each one shows the supplier, its Worklog number (SINV-…), the total including VAT, and a status tag: unpaid, overdue (when the due date has passed), paid, or credited. Tap any one to open it and see the full details and the balance you still owe.

Search supplier invoices — type any part of the supplier's name, their reference number, or the Worklog number.
Show ▾ — pick a status (unpaid, overdue, paid or credited), something to look for (from a repeat, money not logged yet, or owed when your books started), who recorded it (once two or more people have — everyone's, yours or one person's), and When (this month, last month or this tax year). Each choice shows how many supplier invoices it would leave.
Under the list, 📄 PDF and 📊 CSV / Excel print the supplier invoices as you have them — searched, narrowed and sorted: your number, the supplier's own reference, date, supplier, due date, status, the amount before VAT, the VAT, the total and what you still owe, with a total line.
Sort ▾ — newest first (the default) or oldest first, supplier A → Z or Z → A, total highest or lowest first, or the Worklog number.

Pay a supplier invoice

Money is logged in one place: Banking. When you pay a supplier, go to Banking, tap + Add and type the money-out line, and under Is this paying a supplier invoice? pick it. The payment is recorded and the supplier invoice settles in one go, so the money leaving your account shows in Banking, Cash Flow and your Balance Sheet. Logged it without picking the supplier invoice? Open it, tap Already logged the money? Link it and pick it. The supplier invoice itself has no payment button, so the same money is never entered twice.

There is no longer a button that marks a supplier invoice paid without the money. One that shows as paid with no payment logged for it (marked paid before this change, or "already paid" typed on it) carries an amber note: tap 💰 Log the amount to record that payment, and it stays as it is.

💡Marked a supplier invoice paid by mistake? If a payment is logged against it, change or remove that payment in Banking or Money Out and the invoice reopens with it. "↩️ Mark unpaid" is hidden while payments and credits matched to it cover the whole invoice. If they cover only part of it, it reopens the invoice for what is not covered. If nothing is matched to it, it reopens it for the full amount.

Print it, or message the supplier

Open a supplier invoice for 📄 PDF and 📊 CSV / Excel. The PDF is headed Supplier invoice (our record): what you captured of their invoice, under your letterhead. It is never a tax invoice — the supplier's own tax invoice, kept on the supplier invoice, is the document behind your VAT claim.

Under them, a WhatsApp button has a message ready for the supplier: Tell the supplier it arrived while you still owe it (with the day you will pay by, while that is still ahead), or Tell the supplier it's paid once it is. With no tax invoice kept and VAT claimed, Ask for their tax invoice asks them to send it. You read it and press send from your own phone.

Match a payment to the supplier invoice

When you actually pay the supplier, log that payment and link it back to the supplier invoice. This keeps your Profit and Loss correct, because the supplier invoice already counted the cost once, and Worklog then leaves the payment out so it is not counted twice.

Open Banking, tap + Add, and on the line tap 💸 Out. Enter the Amount you paid. Quick Log offers the same link to a supplier invoice.
In the first box, put the supplier's name. If you have supplier invoices open from that supplier, Worklog puts them first.
Find "Is this paying a supplier invoice?" and tap it. You can search by supplier, their reference, or the amount. Pick the one this payment covers.
Once it is linked, Worklog stops asking what it was for — the supplier invoice is the record of what the money was for, so you do not fill it in again.
If your payment covers the full amount still owed, a tick box appears, already ticked, to mark it as paid. Leave it ticked to close it off.
Tap Done, then ✅ Save all lines.

You can also link a payment to a supplier invoice while working through Banking's statement reader, when Worklog reads your bank statement and you go through the transactions one by one.

Paying through the Worklog bot on WhatsApp works too. When you log money out to a supplier and exactly one of their open supplier invoices matches the amount to the cent, the bot asks whether it pays that one. Reply PAID to log it against it; the same message says what to reply if it's a separate purchase.

If you pay less than a supplier invoice still owes, to a name that looks like that supplier, the bot warns you that the supplier has an unpaid invoice, and names the invoice and its supplier. It links nothing. If your login cannot see Supplier Invoices, the warning names no supplier and no invoice. It says the payment may match an unpaid supplier invoice, and that someone who can see Supplier Invoices should link it. If it is a separate purchase, answer as the question says to log it; if it pays that invoice, reply CANCEL and log the payment in Worklog under Money Out, so it is not counted twice.

The bot checks the name you wrote against the names you have saved. If you wrote one name and it read another saved one, for money in or out, hours or an appointment, it asks first: "I read the name as X but you wrote Y." Reply YES to log it for X, NEW to log it for Y, or NO to drop it (for a VAT-registered business a VAT question follows). NO or CANCEL never logs anything; only a YES, or the answer a question names (like NEW), logs it. Nothing is saved on X, and no invoice or supplier invoice of X is shown, until you answer. A name that is only a little different, like a spelling slip, is asked about too, and so is a first name that fits two of your saved names. When you write who it is from, to or by, that name is the one the bot checks. A word the bot does not know, written next to a name, is read as part of that name. Capital letters mostly count for nothing, so write the name as it is saved. Two things still look at them: a job or goods word with a capital right after a name, like Thabo Plumbing, may be part of the name and is asked about (a whole message in capitals is read as if it were in lower case); and Cash or Deposit with a capital after a name may be a family name. A job word straight after part of a saved name is read as the job, not as part of the name, only when you wrote it in lower case, you wrote the first name of the saved name (not its surname), and the bot's description of the entry is that one word alone (Sipho wall for Sipho Dlamini, when the bot described it as wall; Thandi haircut for Thandi Khumalo). It is asked about in every other case: a job word straight after the whole saved name, whatever the bot's description says (Paid R900 to Khumalo plumbing for a contact called Khumalo, Paid R900 to Thabo Mokoena printing); a job word, or gates, stone, sand or gate, after the surname (Paid R900 to mokoena plumbing, mokoena gates and R450 from Dlamini electrical, for Thabo Mokoena and Sipho Dlamini), because a surname and a trade is the usual shape of a business name; the same after a name saved with an initial after it (Mokoena T, Dlamini S), which is the bank's order, so the first word is read as the surname there (so Thabo M asks for thabo plumbing too); a contact saved with the surname first and the first name in full, like Mokoena Thabo, cannot be told apart from a first name, so mokoena plumbing for it is not asked about: save it with the first name first; a saved name with a title counts as whole once you write the name (Mrs Khumalo plumbing and Khumalo plumbing, for Mrs Khumalo); a goods word straight after only part of a saved name (R1500 Cashbuild tiles for Cashbuild George); a job word after part of the name when the bot's description has more words than that one (Sipho wall when the bot wrote building a wall, Thabo gates when it wrote new gates, Thabo electric fence); and a word the bot's description holds together with the name (Thabo wall, R450 from Mokoena electric). A goods word straight after the whole saved name, written in lower case (tiles, timber, oil, chairs, contract, prepaid), is not asked about only when all of these are true: the entry is money out, the contact is saved as a supplier, the bot's description of the entry has that goods word, the goods word is the last word of the name you wrote, and no other saved contact fits what you wrote. So Engen oil R150 is logged for Engen, and R1500 Cashbuild tiles for Cashbuild, when each is saved as a supplier. For a person, a customer, money in or hours it asks (Sipho tiles, Thabo Mokoena printing). A word after the goods word that makes the name longer (Sipho tiles (Pty) Ltd, Dlamini supplies cc, Cashbuild tiles warehouse, Thabo Mokoena printing services) is read as part of the name, so it asks, and so does a job or drop word before one (Thabo plumbing (Pty) Ltd, Spar groceries (Pty) Ltd). Another saved contact fits when its name starts or ends with the words you wrote, or holds the goods word in any form (Cashbuild Tiles beside Cashbuild, Siphos Tiles, SiphoTiles, S Tiles, Tiles Sipho). When two or more saved contacts fit, it asks which one, and the question shows what you wrote: You wrote Cashbuild tiles. Which one? Reply 1 for Cashbuild, 2 for Cashbuild Tiles, or 0 if it's someone else, and send me their name. Reply the number (1, 2, 3, or one, two, three) or type the full name; with more than three contacts it asks for the full name. When the name you wrote is not itself a saved contact, 0 for neither logs it under the name you wrote, with no saved contact; when it is one (Thabo with Thabo Mokoena saved), 0 asks who it is and nothing is logged until you send the name. Only a name settles that: a number, a thanks, none, both, idk, wait, sorry or the exact name of a contact you passed over asks again. A name you send is read back, Log it for X? Reply YES or NO, and is logged only on YES. A name that may be a contact you passed over (another form of it, like Cashbuild-Tiles or T Mokoena) is read back as that: That may be Cashbuild Tiles, whom you passed over. Is it someone else called Cashbuild-Tiles? A YES logs it under the name you typed, never linked to the contact you passed over, and none of that contact's invoices or bills is offered. A different title is another person (Mrs Price is not Mr Price). A YES or a NO does not answer that question, so nothing is logged for a contact you did not pick, and no invoice or supplier invoice of one you passed over is ever shown or settled. The question names a contact only when your login may see it: a customer to a login that can view Contacts, a supplier to a login that can view Money Out and Supplier Invoices and add Suppliers. If any contact that fits is hidden from you, it names none and offers no pick: it says Another saved contact you can't see also fits, and you reply CANCEL and ask the owner to log it. Whenever the contact is one your login may not be told of, whether the bot read it or you picked it, every reply about the entry (the question, the VAT question, a repeat question, a warning about an unpaid invoice, Logged, CANCEL and UNDO) shows the name as you wrote it, or this contact when your words hold no name, never the saved name. In the question that asks which person it is, the bot's reading is called that contact and the other half is the name you wrote. An invoice or supplier invoice the bot asks about is named as it reads on that invoice, which you can open. Hours for a name that is on your Staff Register: a login that can see the Staff Register is asked whether it is the CUSTOMER or who did the WORK, and a contact you may not be told of is not named in that question; WORK then shows the register's name. A login that cannot see the Staff Register gets nothing from it: the bot never looks at the register, never asks that question, and logs the hours for the customer as for any hours. A goods word in another form counts too (sipho tile with Sipho Tiles saved). A short name counts: R450 from Jan, with Jan and Jan Botha saved, asks which one. In the app the card shows the same choice as buttons (up to three), and a name the reading took for a saved contact that your words do not support is asked about on the card too. The entry is not saved until you tap one, and a card passed on to the owner is checked again against the owner's own contacts, so the owner is asked too; if the owner's contacts can't be read, the card asks Is this the saved contact? and waits. When you wrote the whole saved name, groceries, petrol, diesel, fuel, airtime, data, lunch or stationery in lower case after it are read as plain words when the bot's description has the word (Spar groceries), or even without it when the saved name has two or more words (Thabo Mokoena groceries); cash or deposit in lower case always are. Any other word there joins the name, so Thabo Mokoena Gates, Thabo Mokoena Tiles and Thabo Mokoena Cash are asked about. Food and drink (bread, milk), and words about the payment itself (balance, final, salary, wages, rent, loan, advance), beside a saved name are read as plain words when the bot's description has them and does not hold them together with the name (Spar bread R50 is not asked about; spar bread in the description is). The question shows the words as you wrote them, job or goods word included, and a title that is part of a shop name you wrote (Mr Price Home). A word like garage, station, order or hyper after a saved name, or a nickname such as PnP or Woolies, is still asked about: it costs one tap and never saves to the wrong contact. A title like Mr, Mrs or Dr that your saved contact does not have is asked about too, unless the words are the contact's whole name (Mr Thabo Mokoena is Thabo Mokoena; Mr Mokoena and Mr T Mokoena are asked about), because it may be someone else. The Afrikaans title Me counts as a title straight after from, to, by, van or aan, whatever word follows (R450 from Me Nkosi is asked about). It also counts as one straight before a word of a saved name of two or more words, or before an initial and then a word of it, whichever way round the name is saved (R450 from Me Mokoena, R450 from Me T Mokoena and R450 from Me Thabo for Thabo Mokoena are asked about). Anywhere else Me is just the word (Remind me Thabo). While it waits for your answer, a sale or hours for someone else are logged on their own, unless that entry needs a question of its own. Then it is held, and the bot says so. A sale for the same amount from someone who shares only a first name is held with a question, and is not called a repeat.

A slip or PDF is logged once. If you send the same file twice within two minutes, with no caption or the same one, the bot reads it once and tells you the second copy was not read. If the first copy is waiting on your answer, it asks that question again. If you send the file again with a new caption while the first copy waits, the bot reads it as your correction: it replaces the first copy and drops the first question, and the two are never saved together. If the first copy was saved, nothing is saved again, and the bot tells you where to change it. The bot catches the same file, however long ago it was logged, and deleting its expense lets you log it again. In Quick Log in the app, the same slip file cannot be saved twice either: the card says it is already logged and offers only "Same — skip it". Online, the file itself is checked. A slip you attach while you have signal and then save in a dead spot is queued along with its file, so when it syncs Worklog checks the file and also its amount, day and payee (a few days either side) against Money Out. A slip saved with no signal at all has no stored file, so only its amount, day and payee are checked when it syncs. A sale saved with no signal is checked against Money In the same way, by amount, day and payer, so a duplicate sale does not count its income and VAT twice. Nothing queued is saved without the check. If its file is by then an expense, it is not saved, and under Entries that need attention you can only discard it. If an entry like it may already be logged, it is not saved yet either: it shows under Entries that need attention with the reason. Keep it if it is a second, real payment or sale, or discard it. If Worklog cannot read your books to check, it keeps the entry waiting and tries again, and after three refused checks it shows the entry there, saying it could not check it against your books, so you can keep or discard it. If your login cannot view that tool, it says only that an entry like this may already be logged, and not which one. The bot does the same: a login that cannot view Money Out is told only that the slip is already logged, with no amount, payee or day. A PDF sent again is not logged from the file twice. If the supplier has an open invoice and you paid exactly what it still owes, send the payment in words, like "paid R900 to Cashbuild", and the bot asks whether it pays the invoice. For any other amount, the bot warns you and links nothing, and you log the part payment in Money Out. If the supplier has no open invoice, the bot says what to do by the amount: if the amount already logged (it names it) is the whole invoice, do not log a second cost for it, or the invoice is counted twice and its VAT claimed twice. If the invoice is more, the rest is still owed: log it under Money Out when you pay it, without the slip file, which is already logged. A login that cannot view Money Out is told that someone who can log payments for the business can log it. The same words are on the Quick Log card when the same slip file is sent again. A photo taken again, a photo that was shrunk when it was sent on, or a slip you typed into Money Out yourself is not the same file. The bot then checks the amount, the payee and the day, as for any cost, and asks "Log it again?" when they match. If someone else in your business sent the same file, the bot says so and asks nothing.

On WhatsApp the bot never logs money you typed without your reply. A sale or a payment you type is read back ("Reply YES to log it or NO to drop it."), and nothing is saved until you answer; a photo, or a caption sent with one, is read back the same way. If a question follows, such as an unpaid invoice that fits (YES links the payment to it, NEW logs a new sale, NO drops it), a repeat, a name check or the tax year, that question quotes the entry and your answer to it is the yes; for a business that is VAT registered, the VAT question may still follow. Hours and trips you type still log at once when the bot is sure, and appointments are always read back. A different message sent while a question waits does not replace it: the bot says the new one is not logged, and to answer first or reply NO and send the right one. Only a question that asked you to send it again is replaced. A bare amount such as R65,20 is a VAT answer only while a VAT question that offered it is waiting, and it can never be more than 15/115 of the total.

A sale you send twice is asked about too. If the same amount from the same person is already in Money In for the same day, the bot says when it was logged and asks "Log it again?". The name need not be spelt the same way. If the name only fits in part, like a shared first name, the bot says "someone with a similar name" and still asks. Hours are asked about the same way when the same number of hours was already logged on the same day for the same person, or with no customer on both, even if the reading also has an amount. A YES asks only what is still unanswered. After a plain resend it still asks whose the hours are, or how they are billed, as for any hours. If you had already answered CUSTOMER, WORK or the billing question, a YES saves the hours at once (after WORK it still asks how they are billed). The bot also asks "Log it again?" after you answer WORK (hours with no customer), and after you answer "which customer?", if those hours are already logged. A YES after you named a new customer adds the customer and logs the hours once. If your login cannot view that tool, the question says only that something like this may already be logged, and not which entry. For hours, a login that may add hours counts as able to view them unless its Time view is switched off. Reply YES if you were really paid twice, or NO to leave it.

💡If you only pay part of what you owe, link the payment anyway. Worklog takes it off the supplier invoice, so Age Analysis, Supplier Invoices Due and Remittance show only what is still owing, and keeps it open for that balance. Change or delete the payment later and its balance is worked out again from the payments still linked to it.

When a supplier credits you

Sometimes a supplier gives money back or knocks an amount off a supplier invoice — you returned goods, or they overcharged. Record that against the supplier invoice as a credit note so what you owe and your input VAT both come right.

Open Supplier Credit Notes under Purchases and tap + New. The New supplier credit note form opens — tap 🧾 Link to one of their invoices - optional and pick the one they credited. (Or open the supplier invoice and tap Supplier credited you? Record it — the form opens with it already picked.) If it isn't in Worklog, see Record a supplier credit from scratch below.
Check Date on the supplier’s credit note: it starts as today. Change it to the date printed on their credit note. If you are registered for VAT: on the invoice basis your VAT201 counts the credit in the period of that date, not the day you captured it (VAT Act s21(6)). On the payments basis Worklog does not count it by that date: a credit taken off its invoice lowers the VAT that payments of that invoice from that date on can claim, and one for an invoice already paid in full, or kept on account, counts only when it is refunded or applied. When the date falls in a VAT201 you have already marked filed, the form says what happens before you save. A day in the future is refused, a day before the invoice’s own is refused, and so is a day before your books start (a credit from before then belongs in your opening balances).
Tap Whole invoice, Specific lines (then tick the lines they credited), or An amount (then type the Rand figure they credited — and if the supplier invoice's lines sit under more than one category, or none, pick the one it comes off; where they all share one, the credit takes it).
If the goods went back, tick Goods went back to the supplier — take them off the shelf. The credited lines come off stock on your Price List, matched by name. The tick only shows if you keep products or materials, and not for An amount.
Add a Reason if you like, such as returned goods or an overcharge. This is optional.
There is nothing to choose about settling: the credit comes off the supplier invoice it is for, as far as that supplier invoice still owes, and the blue line under the amount says exactly what will happen. Anything left over — or all of it, if it is already paid — is held as credit the supplier owes you (Owed to you); use it on another of their invoices, or record that they paid it back, from the credit note.
Under Keep the supplier's credit note, tap 📷 Photograph it or 📎 Attach the file to keep their document with the credit.
Check the credit amount, then tap Save credit note. If your credit notes need someone else's approval, the button reads Send for approval instead.

💡The credit note gets its own number — supplier credits use their own series (like SCN-2026-0001), kept apart from the CN- numbers on customer credits. If you held it on account, it shows as Owed to you in Supplier Credit Notes, where you can use it on another of their invoices or record that they paid it back, and a remittance advice for that supplier takes it off what you pay them next.

Typed the wrong date on a supplier credit note? Open it in Supplier Credit Notes and tap Correct the date. It follows the same rules as when you recorded it: not in the future, not before the invoice it credits, and not before your books start. And it cannot be later than the day you recorded the credit note in Worklog, because the supplier’s document already existed by then. If you are registered for VAT, on the invoice basis your VAT201 then follows the new date; on the payments basis it follows the payments of its invoice, or the day it is refunded or applied, as above. Where your credit notes need approval, only someone with approve rights can correct the date. It can’t be changed while a VAT201 you have marked filed holds the credit note, because moving it changes what that return declared, and SARS has that return as filed. A return filed before credit notes went in field 12 netted the credit note off the input claim, so its claim would rise, and a rise can’t go on a return SARS already has (SARS’s VAT201 guide, section 11.1(b)). That takes two steps, both by hand, because Worklog won’t do either while the date is locked: type the credit note’s VAT into the VAT201 of the period it was really issued, in field 12 (VAT Act s21(6)), and put the extra claim on your next VAT201. Worklog’s next VAT201 does not carry either, and you should not undo the filing and mark it filed again for it: that writes a claim into a return SARS never accepted it on. Where the return has the credit note in field 12, what falls (output tax) goes by a Request for Correction on eFiling (SARS’s VAT 404 guide, section 10.3.1). Only after that, where no claim would rise and you have recorded nothing on that return with I’ve dealt with this (Worklog won’t undo a filing whose record holds a correction), undo the filing on the VAT201 screen, correct the date, and mark the return filed again. If the credit note’s real date falls in a later VAT201 that is also filed, that return must be put right too: a Request for Correction that raises its field 12 by the credit note’s VAT. Marking it filed again does not put it right with SARS.

Record a supplier credit from scratch

When the supplier invoice they credited isn't in Worklog — say it is from before you started — record the credit without linking it. There is nothing for it to come off, so the whole credit is kept as money the supplier owes you (Owed to you).

Open Supplier Credit Notes under Purchases and tap + New. Leave 🧾 Link to one of their invoices - optional alone.
Pick the Supplier from your contacts — the credit is kept on their account, so it has to be a saved supplier.
Check Date on the supplier’s credit note: it starts as today. Change it to the date printed on their credit note. If you are registered for VAT: on the invoice basis your VAT201 counts the credit in the period of that date, not the day you captured it (VAT Act s21(6)). On the payments basis Worklog does not count it by that date: a credit taken off its invoice lowers the VAT that payments of that invoice from that date on can claim, and one for an invoice already paid in full, or kept on account, counts only when it is refunded or applied. When the date falls in a VAT201 you have already marked filed, the form says what happens before you save. A day in the future is refused, and so is a day before your books start (a credit from before then belongs in your opening balances).
Type Their invoice number: the number of the invoice they credited, as it appears on their credit note.
Choose Line by line or An amount. Line by line: add a line for what they credited — the amount before VAT, with a category, the same as a line on a supplier invoice. An amount: type what they credited with any VAT included, and pick What it's for. Equipment isn't credited here: a return of it goes through the Asset Register.
If you are registered for VAT, say whether their invoice charged VAT: 15% VAT or No VAT.
Add a Reason if you like, keep the supplier's credit note with 📷 Photograph it or 📎 Attach the file, then tap Save credit note.

💡Open the credit note to use it on another of their invoices, or record that they paid it back. If the goods went back, tick Goods went back to the supplier — take them off the shelf (on Line by line, if you keep products or materials): the credited lines come off stock on your Price List, matched by name, so pick them with Add from your items. If the number you type is a supplier invoice that is in Worklog, the form says so and offers to link it instead.

A note on VAT and tax

⚠️Worklog keeps your records and works out the VAT for you, but it is not a tax adviser. For how a specific purchase or your VAT claim should be treated, check with SARS or a registered tax practitioner or accountant.

What saving and paying it actually create

The supplier invoice counts as a cost — and its VAT as an input-VAT claim, if you're registered — from its issue date, before any money moves.
Lines that name a Product or Material from your price list add the quantity bought back into stock, the mirror of the way a sales invoice takes stock out.
Paying it is logged in Banking → + Add, picking the supplier invoice: that records the money and settles it in one go, so the payment reaches Banking, Cash Flow and reconciliation.

⚠️Log each payment once, in Banking → + Add. If it is already in Banking but not matched to the supplier invoice, open it and tap Already logged the money? Link it › instead of logging it again.

⚠️If “Big payments need approval” is switched on and the supplier invoice is over the limit, marking it paid needs approve rights on Supplier Invoices. The payment itself still saves and stays linked — the screen tells you who can finish the last step.

A supplier invoice with payments matched to it can't be removed: deleting it would leave that money out of your costs and out of the VAT you claim. Remove the payment in Banking first — that reverses cleanly — then remove it. The same rule protects invoices. One with a supplier credit note against it, or a supplier's credit applied to it, can't be removed at all — the credit is tied to it: if the supplier invoice is wrong, record the supplier's credit note against it, and the two stay together.

Still stuck? Open the in-app help assistant, or email us at hello@worklogsolutions.co.za.

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