You sold a network installation with equipment, cabling, and two configuration visits. The customer accepted last week, but someone prepares the invoice by copying only the total from an email. The equipment discount disappears and the description becomes miscellaneous services. An estimate-to-invoice handoff should preserve the agreement and make changes reviewable without reconstructing every line from scratch.
Accepted does not mean invoiced
In Tario, estimates move through commercial stages including draft, internal approval, sending, and acceptance or decline. Acceptance makes conversion available; it does not collect money or issue an invoice by itself. Conversion creates a draft invoice for review and issuance. Keep internal approval separate from the customer's response. A supervisor approving your price does not establish that the buyer accepted the proposed scope.
An estimate is a commercial proposal in Tario, not something transmitted to Hacienda or posted as an invoice. Hacienda's official version 4.4 presentation describes electronic documents in XML format and identifies their document types. Keep evidence of the agreement separate from the issued invoice's fiscal documentation. An email accepting the quote is not a substitute for the applicable electronic document.
Identify what the customer accepted
Locate the accepted version, date, and terms before conversion. Discussions may change quantities, delivery, or payment terms after the first PDF. If the customer approved ten cameras and later requested eight, remembering that they said yes is insufficient. Confirm the change and keep a reference colleagues can consult. Where a purchase order exists, compare its lines with the estimate and resolve differences before invoicing.
Check the buyer too. A group might request an estimate under a clinic's trading name but require an invoice addressed to its management company. Confirm billing details with an authorized contact before issue. Do not change the counterparty solely because a new email address appeared. Equipment going to the same building does not make two legal entities interchangeable.
Convert, then inspect the draft
Tario's Convert to invoice action on an accepted estimate creates a draft with its lines and retains the document relationship. Review that invoice in Sales. The association helps explain the amount's origin and prevents unnecessary copying, but does not validate every later difference. The person issuing the invoice still needs to check current contents and outstanding requirements.
- Compare products, quantities, prices, discounts, and descriptions with the accepted version.
- Check currency, dates, due date, and payment terms in the draft.
- Review customer fiscal details and the taxes applicable to the actual transaction.
- Confirm recipients and the relationship to the correct estimate.
In the network example, equipment costs CRC600,000 and labor CRC200,000, with a CRC30,000 equipment discount. The commercial subtotal is CRC770,000 before applicable taxes. A draft subtotal of CRC800,000 suggests the discount was lost. CRC750,000 calls for a quantity or visit check. A line comparison explains the issue better than approving a total because it resembles the amount mentioned in an email.
When only part of the work is invoiced
Staged work requires an explicit decision about what is being invoiced now. A consultancy may include assessment and training, with only the assessment completed. Review the contract and delivered scope instead of habitually issuing everything and correcting later. If you prepare a separate invoice, Tario can associate an existing invoice with the estimate. That link does not independently calculate undelivered or uninvoiced work.
Do not treat conversion as automatic milestone management. Track contracted, delivered, and invoiced work with clear references. Before preparing a second invoice, inspect associated invoices and compare their lines. Two invoices may legitimately cover one project, or one may be an accidental duplicate. Association count cannot tell you which happened; transaction detail and commercial evidence can.
Validity, currency, and price changes
If the offer expired, renew the agreement before proceeding as though the original price remains valid. Supplier costs or delivery dates may have changed. For a USD estimate, distinguish the agreed USD price from the conversion used when invoicing. Do not silently change pricing merely to reach a desired CRC total. Ask the commercial owner and check the conditions the customer actually accepted.
Dates deserve their own review. The estimate date identifies when you offered the work; the invoice date describes the document now being prepared. Copying the first without checking the actual transaction can produce incorrect information. Also verify the negotiated payment term. An offer valid for fifteen days and an invoice payable in thirty days use deadlines for different purposes, even though both involve dates.
Finish with a traceable handoff
Compare the final draft against the current agreement before issue. Then check issuance and sending separately from collection. If AI helped prepare the document, manual issuance requires explicit confirmation; asking for preparation or conversion is not unrestricted authorization. Identify the associated invoice and the person who resolved changes so a colleague can continue follow-up without asking again what was sold.