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Finance → Receivables → Invoices → Credit Notes / Debit Notes Adjustments change what a resident owes without money moving. They are how you correct a bill after it has been issued, and every one of them posts to the general ledger.

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Choosing the right instrument

Void and write-off are not interchangeable. Voiding says the bill was a mistake — revenue is reversed. Writing off says the bill was correct but is uncollectable — revenue stands and a bad-debt expense is recognised. Using the wrong one misstates both revenue and bad debt.

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Credit notes

Use a credit note for a discount, a goodwill reduction, a billing error, or to cancel part of a charge.
1

Open the invoice

Credit notes are raised against the invoice they correct, so the link is preserved.
2

Create the credit note

Use Create Credit Note from the invoice, or Invoices → Credit Notes → Add.
3

Enter the lines

Credit the specific service-type lines being reduced, not a single lump sum, so revenue is reversed from the correct income accounts.
4

State the reason

The reason appears on the resident’s statement and in the audit trail. Write it for someone reading it in a year.
5

Save and issue

The resident’s balance falls and the ledger posts the reversal.

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Debit notes

Use a debit note to add a charge to an existing invoice relationship — a missed utility line, an agreed penalty, a correction in your favour. The mechanics mirror credit notes: raise it against the invoice, reference the right service type, give a reason. The resident’s balance rises.
If the extra charge is a recurring or standalone item rather than a correction to a specific invoice, issue a new invoice instead. Debit notes are for corrections; invoices are for billing.

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Write-offs

A write-off is an accounting decision, not a data cleanup.
  • The invoice stays. Its payment status becomes written_off.
  • The receivable is removed and bad debt is recognised.
  • The debt stops appearing in aging and stops driving collections.
Write-offs are normally routed for approval, and closing a collections case with a write-off is an explicitly approved action.
Never delete an invoice to make a debt disappear. Deletion breaks the statement, the aging report, the tax record and the ledger. Void, credit or write off — all three leave a trail.

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Bulk credit notes

Credit notes can be imported through Admin → Bulk Upload with the Credit Notes type, for example when reversing a mis-billed run across many leases at once. See Bulk upload.

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Where adjustments show up

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Tax implications

An adjustment against a tax-bearing invoice changes the tax as well as the net. Tax on this platform is exclusive, so a credit of KES 10,000 against a 16% line credits KES 11,600 in total.
The platform has no credit-note-to-KRA path yet. Crediting an invoice that was already accepted by eTIMS corrects your books but does not correct the KRA filing. Coordinate with whoever owns tax compliance before crediting a certified invoice. See Tax & eTIMS.

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Good practice

  • One adjustment, one reason. Bundled corrections are impossible to audit.
  • Adjust in the period the error is discovered if the original period is closed — do not reopen a closed period to backdate a correction unless your policy requires it. See Accounting periods.
  • Reconcile credit notes monthly against approvals; a rise in unapproved credits is the classic early signal of a control problem.