When to use this

Use this when you’re loading past invoices that already exist in QuickBooks Online or Xero, and you want them in Luminous for history only. Without these steps, imported invoices can be pushed to your accounting system again as new invoices under Luminous numbers, which creates duplicates.

Steps

  1. Go to Tools → Imports, and under Sales & Fulfillment open Invoices.
  2. Click Download Invoices Template, or use your own file. Add two columns to it. They aren’t in the template, so add them yourself:
    • HISTORY_ONLY: enter YES for every historical invoice. TRUE and 1 also work. NO, FALSE and 0 mean the opposite.
    • SALES_ORDER_NUMBER: the number of the existing sales order the invoice belongs to.
  3. Fill in the required columns: order date, master SKU, quantity and unit price. Use the same INVOICE_ID on every line of one invoice, and sort the file by INVOICE_ID so each invoice’s rows are next to each other.
  4. Select the file. On Map Columns, check that HISTORY_ONLY and SALES_ORDER_NUMBER are mapped. They match automatically when the headers are spelled exactly as above.
  5. Click Next to open Preview. Fix any rows flagged as invalid, or tick Ignore Errors (only import valid rows) to skip them.
  6. Click Import. When it finishes, check Import Errors for any rows that failed.

What happens

  • Invoices marked history only stay in Luminous. They are never pushed automatically to QuickBooks or Xero, including by the scheduled retry of failed syncs.
  • Each invoice is linked to its sales order when you provide SALES_ORDER_NUMBER.

Good to know

  • SALES_ORDER_NUMBER must match exactly one active sales order. If no sales order matches, several match, or the invoice is already linked to a different sales order, that row fails. You’ll see a message such as “Sales order not found: [number]” under Import Errors. Fix the file and re-import those rows.
  • An unrecognized HISTORY_ONLY value (anything other than YES/NO, TRUE/FALSE or 1/0) is flagged on the Preview step, and that row won’t import.
  • Blank or NO means a new invoice is pushed as usual. It does not clear History only on an invoice that already has it.
  • You can still push one on purpose. Use Sync to QuickBooks in the invoice’s actions menu, or the bulk manual sync. Do this only if you’re sure the invoice isn’t already in QuickBooks.
  • Invoices already pushed are unaffected. This doesn’t undo or remove anything already sent to QuickBooks. Delete duplicates in QuickBooks yourself.

See also: How and when does Luminous sync invoices to QuickBooks?