The overnight billing processes

Overview

Every night, without anyone clicking anything, the system gets the previous day’s billing ready: it prepares inventory, bills daily storage, builds invoices and closes expired quotes. All these processes can run again without duplicating anything. It helps to know what they do to understand why the pool is almost empty in the morning.

The schedule

Time (system)	Process	What it leaves
1:30	Empty stock cleanup	Inventory without old zero rows
2:00	Storage accrual	One storage charge for the day per client on daily mode
2:30	Invoice generation	Invoices for everything pending and billable
3:00	Quote expiry	Overdue quotes set to Expired

Times are the system server’s, which may not match your warehouse’s time zone. They run for every active warehouse that has the corresponding module.

1:30 — Empty stock cleanup

It deletes stock rows with zero quantity and zero reserved that have had no movement for more than 7 days. It runs before storage so the day’s calculation sees clean inventory. Rows emptied less than 7 days ago are kept because they hold the arrival date in case the goods come back.

2:00 — Storage accrual

Only for clients whose storage is on daily accrual; those billed at shipment are skipped.
It counts their pallets past their free days (excluding the cross-dock staging location) and creates a charge for the day.
Only with a per-pallet-per-day rate and a price on the client or in the catalog.
It never creates two charges for the same client and day.

Detail: Storage in detail.

2:30 — Invoice generation

It does the same as each warehouse’s Generate invoices button: takes all pending charges, groups them by each client’s payment terms and creates numbered invoices. It leaves out:

current-month charges of monthly clients;
accessorials waiting for their shipment to ship;
unpriced charges, in warehouses on the new version.

Late charges are added to their operation’s open invoice. It doesn’t email any invoice. See Generate invoices.

3:00 — Quote expiry

It moves to Expired the Sent or Negotiating quotes whose valid-until date has passed. Drafts and quotes without a date are not touched. See Quote statuses.

If a process runs twice or doesn’t run

Twice: nothing happens. Storage checks whether the day was already billed, invoicing only takes uninvoiced charges and expiry only touches what is still open.
It didn’t run (after a server restart, for example): the next night’s invoice generation picks up everything pending, and the Generate invoices button does the same at any time. A lost day of daily storage is not recovered on its own: ask support to reprocess that date (reprocessing doesn’t duplicate either).

What to check in the morning

The Invoices tab: new invoices carry their operation’s date, not today’s.
What is left in Services to Invoice: it should only be current-month charges of monthly clients, held or unpriced ones.
For clients on daily mode, that yesterday’s storage exists.
Any storage with unusual quantities (products without pallet packaging).

Example

Tuesday closes with a Demo shipment shipped at 18:00, an accessorial for Test Customer and a receipt for a monthly client. At 2:00 storage is accrued for Central Warehousing, which is on daily mode: 22 pallets. At 2:30 three invoices come out: Demo’s shipment, Test Customer’s accessorial and Central Warehousing’s daily storage. The monthly client’s receipt waits for the 1st of next month.

Troubleshooting

In the morning there are no new invoices and the pool is still full.

The charges belong to monthly clients for the current month, or the process didn’t run. Click Generate invoices; if charges that should go out don’t, contact support.

A day of daily storage is missing.

The client wasn’t on daily mode, had no pallets past their free days, or the process didn’t run that day. To recover it, contact support with the date.

An invoice went out before I reviewed it.

Fix it: adding, editing or removing lines recalculates everything. See Invoices: edit and correct.

FAQ

Can I turn off automatic generation?

There is no option on screen. If you need to review everything before invoicing, put your clients on Monthly terms (only the closed month is invoiced) or review during the day.

Do the overnight processes send emails?

They don’t send invoices or quote notices. Invoices are only emailed when someone sends them.