Invoice:

An invoice or bill is a commercial document issued by a seller to the buyer, indicating the products, quantities, and agreed prices for products or services the seller has provided the buyer. An invoice indicates the buyer must pay the seller, according to the payment terms. The buyer has a maximum amount of days to pay for these goods and is sometimes offered a discount if paid before the due date. In the rental industry, an invoice must include a specific reference to the duration of the time being billed, so in addition to quantity, price and discount the invoicing amount is also based on duration. Generally speaking each line of a rental invoice will refer to the actual hours, days, weeks, months, etc. being billed. From the point of view of a seller, an invoice is a sales invoice. From the point of view of a buyer, an invoice is a purchase invoice. The document indicates the buyer and seller, but the term invoice indicates money is owed or owing. In English, the context of the term invoice is usually used to clarify its meaning, such as "We sent them an invoice" (they owe us money) or "We received an invoice from them" (we owe them money).

A typical invoice contains

The word invoice (or Tax Invoice if in Australia and amounts include GST). A unique reference number (in case of correspondence about the invoice) Date of the invoice. Tax payments if relevant (e.g. GST or VAT) Name and contact details of the seller Tax or company registration details of seller (if relevant)[e.g. Australia Business Number (ABN) for Australian businesses.] Name and contact details of the buyer Date that the product was sent or delivered Purchase order number (or similar tracking numbers requested by the buyer to be mentioned on the invoice) Description of the product(s) Unit price(s) of the product(s) (if relevant) Total amount charged (optionally with breakdown of taxes, if relevant) Payment terms (including method of payment, date of payment, and details about charges for late payment)

Electronic invoices
Some invoices are no longer paper-based, but rather transmitted electronically over the Internet. It is still common for electronic remittance or invoicing to be printed in order to maintain paper records. Standards for electronic invoicing vary widely from country to country. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) standards such as the United Nation's EDIFACT standard include message encoding guidelines for electronic invoices.

Payment for Invoices:

Organizations purchasing goods and services usually have a process in place for approving payment on the invoice based on an employee's confirmation that the goods or services have been received. Typically, when paying an invoice, a remittance advice will be sent to the supplier to inform them their invoice has been paid.

Standardization:
Invoices are different from receipts. Both Invoices and receipts are ways of tracking purchases of goods and services. In general the content of the invoices can be similar to that of receipts including tracking the amount of the sale, calculating sales tax owed and calculating any discounts applied to the purchase. Invoices differ from receipts in that invoices serve to notify customers of payments owed, whereas receipts serve as proof of completed payment.

References:
Invoice illustration adapted from Meigs and Meigs Financial Accounting 4th Ed. (McGraw-Hill, 1970), p.190 Woodford, William; Wilson, Valerie; Freeman, Suellen; Freeman, (2008). Accounting: A Practical Approach (2 ed.). Pearson Education. pp. 410. John

Credit Note:
A Credit Note or Credit Memo is a document used to adjust or rectify errors made in a sales invoice which has already been processed and sent to a customer. If you have already sent an invoice to a customer but now need to provide a credit for that invoice, you would send them a Credit Note or Credit Memo. You can think of a credit note as a negative invoice.

Some examples of when you would use a Credit Note

Unit price overcharged or over-billed: For example you issued an invoice for an
item for $1100 when the correct price of the item should have been $1010 instead. Therefore you need to issue a Credit Note to give a credit of $90 to your customer for the amount overbilled.

Goods short shipped : You invoiced a customer for 10 units of your product but only
shipped 9 units to them by mistake. The customer then calls you to say that 9 units are okay and does not want the shortfall item at the moment. Therefore you need to issue a Credit Note to credit your customer for the shortfall quantity of 1 unit.

Faulty goods returned or goods rejected by customer: You would issue a credit
note for the goods returned to correct your Accounts Receivable and Inventory.

Product Wrongly Shipped: You wrongly invoiced and shipped Product A when the
customer actually ordered Product B which may or may not be at a different price. To rectify this, you would then ship Product B together with a Credit Note for Product A and another invoice for product B. This will restore the inventory and Accounts Receivable in your books while billing the customer for the correct item and amount. Meanwhile the customer returns the incorrect Product A.

Discounts given after the invoice is issued: You sent an invoice for $1100. The customer then calls you asking for a discount and ask you to waive the $100 making the net invoice amount $1000. You agree to this in good faith. You would then issue a credit note for $100 to this customer to adjust for the discount given. To Write-off Customer Short Payments: You send an invoice for say $2010. The customer sends you a short payment of $2000 only. You do not wish to recover the shortfall amount but your books indicate that $10 still owes on this invoice. You can then issue a credit note of $10 to write-off the shortfall amount.

References:
http://www.ezysoft-dev.com/blog/credit-note-or-credit-memo/

Debit Note:
The answer to most of these problems is to have a simple, effective and efficient system for customers to inform you of the issue at hand. For instance: if your customer gets a short delivery or goods are damaged in transit or the customer no longer requires some part of your goods/service, the customer (with your carefully considered authority) can issue a debit note to you for the amount in dispute.

For example: Invoiced Amount Customer sends to you Debit Note for damaged goods Cheque for 30.00 270.00 300.00

The original invoice remains the same: which ensures there is no delay due to the customer notifying you of the damage, and you then having to send either a credit note or a new invoice, prior to payment. Or you having received the 270.00 cheque and trying to find out why it is 30.00 short of the invoiced amount. You may encounter a customer who insists on the use of debit notes. If used sensibly the debit note is a great advantage to both parties.

References:
http://www.bizhelp24.com/money/cash-flow-control/credit-note-debit-note-and-purchase-order.html

Statement Of Account
This is a duplicate of the ledger account prepared daily and completed on the last day of the month, or at some other regular time as may be determined by arrangement with the depositor. The depositor is expected to call for this shortly thereafter. If he does not do so it may be mailed to him. It lists the amounts deposited and the checks drawn by the depositor which the bank has paid during the month, and then shows how much of a balance the depositor has - that is, for how much he may still draw on the bank. Bankers usually require the depositor to acknowledge, by his signature, that he has received the statement, and there is also usually a stipulation that if it is not objected to within a certain number of days the account will be considered correct. Most banks use the monthly statement of account. With other banks the customer must present his pass book to be "written up," showing checks paid and balance forwarded. It is often necessary under this system to notify and urge customers to bring in their books. Specimen Duplicate Deposit Tickets Deposited By in The Institute National Bank ofNew York

Temporaryreceipt for deposit, issued pending entry in Pass Book. Depositors will please compare above amounts with entries in statement when rendered. Duplicate Deposit Ticket Institute National Bank Cleveland, Ohio____________________182 ______________________Has Deposited $_______________________TO TheCreditOf __________________________ _______________________________________ Teller.

References:
This section is from the book "Elementary Banking", by John Franklin Ebersole. http://chestofbooks.com/finance/banking/Elementary-Banking-AIB/Statement-OfAccount.html#ixzz1vc7zXtnQ