Overview
A Receiving Report records the goods you physically accepted from a vendor. A bill (vendor invoice) is the separate financial record of what you owe for those goods. Luminous keeps them distinct so you can receive inventory immediately while entering the vendor invoice later. When a receiving report has no associated bill, you simply need to create one — Luminous will pre-fill the form and automatically match the bill lines to the receipt.
Step 1 — Identify receiving reports without a bill
- Go to Inventory → Receiving.
- The Receiving Reports list shows all receipts with their received date, ID, PO number, and line item counts.
- Scroll through the list (or filter by supplier, date range, or PO number) to locate the receiving report(s) that need a bill. Receiving reports do not show a "bill" indicator on this page, so you may also cross-reference the Bills list — use the Unreconciled filter in the left sidebar under Bills to find bills that exist but have not yet been matched to any receipt lines.
Step 2 — Create a bill directly from the receiving report
This is the fastest method and automatically pre-fills the bill with the correct vendor, currency, and line items.
- In Inventory → Receiving, locate the receiving report.
- Click the ⋮ (three-dot) action menu on the right side of the row.
- Select Create Bill.
- Luminous opens the bill creation form. It pre-fills:
- Vendor — pulled from the purchase order linked to the receiving report
- Line items — one product line per SKU received, with quantity and unit price from the receipt
- Any lines that are already fully billed on a prior bill are filtered out automatically
- Review the amounts, adjust if needed, and fill in the Bill Date, Due Date, and Vendor Invoice # (the number from your vendor's invoice document).
- Click Save. The bill is created in Draft status and is automatically linked to the receiving report.
Alternative entry points:
- Open the Purchase Order detail page → Bills tab → Create Bill for this PO (pre-fills from the entire PO).
- Open the PO detail page → Shipments tab, click the row action on a shipment, and select Create Bill (pre-fills from that specific shipment's receipt lines).
Step 3 — Release the bill
After saving, the bill is in Draft status. To make it active:
- Open the bill from the Bills list.
- Click Release in the bill header.
- The status moves to Open, meaning it is finalized and ready for payment recording.
Step 4 — Verify reconciliation
When a bill is created from a receiving report, Luminous automatically runs FIFO allocation — matching each product line on the bill to the corresponding receipt lines in the order they were received. To confirm the match:
- Open the bill → click the Reconcile tab.
- Each line item shows a status chip:
- Matched (green) — fully allocated to a receipt line ✓
- Partial (yellow) — only part of the quantity is matched
- Unmatched (red) — no allocation yet
- If any lines are Unmatched or Partial, click the line item in the left panel, then use the Eligible Records list on the right to manually select the receipt line to match against, or click Auto Reconcile at the top of the tab to let Luminous re-run automatic matching.
The overall bill reconciliation status (visible in the bill list) will update to Reconciled once all lines are fully matched.
Handling variances
If the bill amount differs from the received quantity or value (for example, the vendor invoiced more than you received), a variance banner appears on the bill detail page. You have two resolution options:
- Resolve via Vendor Credit — Creates a credit memo for the difference, which can be applied to reduce the bill balance.
- Add Adjustment Line — Adds an adjustment line item to the bill to account for the discrepancy.
Bulk reconciliation with the Allocation Inbox
If you have many bills with unreconciled lines across multiple receiving reports, the Allocation Inbox provides a centralized workspace:
- Navigate to Bills → Allocation Inbox.
- The left panel lists all unreconciled bill lines across all bills.
- Click any line to open the matching workspace on the right and link it to the correct receipt line.
This avoids opening each bill individually when working through a backlog.
Quick-reference: Three ways to create a bill for a receiving report
| Starting point | Steps |
|---|---|
| Inventory → Receiving | ⋮ menu on the report row → Create Bill |
| Purchase Order detail → Bills tab | Click Create Bill for this PO |
| Purchase Order detail → Shipments tab | ⋮ menu on the shipment row → Create Bill |