How to void an invoice in MYOB

Decide what you want to be left in MYOB. Cancelling keeps the invoice as a closed record, with the credit that cancels it sitting beside it, which is useful when the customer already has a copy. Deleting takes the invoice out of MYOB altogether, with nothing to look back on later.

To cancel, have the original invoice handy: the customer, every line and the total. The credit you create should carry the same line details, with the quantities or amounts turned negative, so that it cancels the whole invoice rather than part of it.

Check for payments too. MYOB won't delete an invoice while a payment is recorded against it, and on the desktop a payment applied to a sale has to be reversed before the sale can be.

1. Open the invoice you're cancelling (Sales menu > Invoices) and note its customer, lines and total.
2. From the Create menu, choose Invoice. This new invoice becomes the credit.
3. Select the same customer, check the Issue date and set the Field layout to match the original invoice.
4. Enter the original invoice's lines with the same details, making each quantity or amount negative, so the credit's total equals the invoice total.
5. Click Save, then Save again when MYOB asks you to confirm creating the credit.
6. From the Sales menu, choose Sales returns and credits, pick the customer and click Apply on the new credit.
7. Against the invoice you're cancelling, enter the full credit in the Amount applied field.
8. Click Record.

The invoice is closed but still in MYOB, and the applied credit shows against it. MYOB says cancelling this way closes the invoice without affecting your account balances.

MYOB notes that an invoice with a credit applied to it still needs to go to the customer so they can acknowledge the change. If you applied the credit to the wrong invoice, deleting the applied credit from that invoice's Activity history makes the credit available again.

If you use AccountRight on the desktop, you can reverse the sale rather than build a credit by hand. With the security preference Transactions CAN'T be Changed; They Must be Reversed selected (Setup > Preferences > Security tab), open the sale and choose Reverse Sale from the Edit menu. MYOB creates a credit note for the same amounts, which you then apply to the original sale to settle it. The date and memo of a reversal can be changed, but not its accounts or amounts.

A few things get in the way of a reversal on the desktop. A payment applied to the sale must be reversed first, and an early payment discount has its own transaction to reverse. Reversing a reconciled transaction puts the bank reconciliation out of balance, so undo the reconciliation, reverse the sale, then reconcile again. A sale from a closed financial year needs a reversal dated in the current year, and dating a reversal back to the original date changes that earlier month's reports.

Opening an AccountRight file in a browser only lets you delete transactions, not reverse them, so do any reversals in the desktop app.