The Lifecycle Panel
Every sales document carries a panel showing where it sits in the chain, what has been created from it, how much has been collected, and what the numbers disagree about. It is the fastest answer to 'what happened to this?'
A sales document rarely stands alone. An invoice came from an order, the order came from an estimate, the goods went out on a delivery note, and the money came back on one or more receipts. The Lifecycle panel on the document page shows that whole story from wherever you happen to be standing.
The chain rail
At the top of the panel, five dots name the sales chain:
Each dot is in one of three states — the document you are reading is marked as current; a stage that exists is filled; a stage that does not is hollow. One glance answers "was this ever quoted?" and "has anything shipped?".
The rail appears on estimates, quotes, sales orders, invoices, delivery notes, receipts and credit notes. It does not appear on sales receipts, customer refunds or proforma invoices — those sit outside the chain, and drawing five dots for a one-document cash sale would be a fiction.
The tabs
Below the rail, one tab per related document type. The tabs differ by where you are:
| On a… | Tabs |
|---|---|
| Estimate or Quote | Sales orders · Invoices · Payments |
| Sales Order | Invoices · Delivery · Payments · Quote |
| Invoice | Payments · Returns · Delivery · Order |
| Delivery Note | Invoices · Order · Payments |
| Receipt | Invoices · Returns · Order · Delivery |
| Credit Note | Invoices · Refunds |
| Sales Receipt | Returns · Refunds |
Each tab carries a count. An empty tab offers the button that would fill it — Create sales order, Create invoice, Create delivery note, Record Payment, Create credit note, Create refund — so the panel is a place to act, not only to read. A tab with nothing in it and no create permission is dropped entirely rather than shown as a dead end.
The empty state reads "No payments yet — This invoice has no payments linked."
Linked documents you lack read permission for still appear — you can see that a receipt exists — but the View link is replaced by the words No access. Hiding the row would make the invoice look unpaid to someone who simply cannot open receipts.
The Payments panel
On an invoice, the Payments tab is more than a list. It shows a progress bar reading "72% collected", then three figures — Invoiced, Paid, Balance — and a plain sentence: "Paid in full." or "Collected 72% so far · 2,750.00 still outstanding." When more than one bank account received money against the document, a By account breakdown appears.
Each payment row names the document and its status, then a meta line that answers the question a credit controller actually has: 2026-07-20 · paid 5d after invoice · into Operating account.
The percentage is held at 99 until the balance is within a cent of zero. A bar that says "100% collected" above a line that says "12.40 still outstanding" is worse than no bar at all.
Insights
The panel also states, in plain sentences, where the linked documents disagree with each other. At most five appear, most serious first.
| Sentence | What it caught |
|---|---|
| Over-received against the order on 2 items. | More was delivered than was ordered. A table names the items with Ordered, Received and the difference. |
| Fully delivered — 100% of the ordered quantity received. | The order is complete. |
| 84% of the ordered quantity delivered — shortage of 6. | Part of the order has not shipped. |
| Billed above the order rate on 1 item. | The invoice charged more per unit than the order agreed. The table shows Order rate against Billed rate. |
| Rate shortage — billed below the order rate on 1 item. | The opposite — you undercharged. |
| Billed rates match the order. | Nothing to worry about. |
| Under-billed: 4,200.00 of 6,000.00 ordered. | Value still to invoice against the order. |
| Billed 800.00 above the order. | The invoice exceeds what was ordered. |
| Billed quantity differs from delivered on 3 items. | You are billing for something other than what went out. |
| Paid 4 days after the due date. | How this customer actually paid — also stated as before, or on, the due date. |
These are the checks a person would otherwise do by opening three documents side by side.
When there is no Lifecycle panel
Customer refunds, proforma invoices and invoice links have no lifecycle entry. Their page shows Created From and Converted To cards instead — the same relationships, without the chain framing that would not apply.
Related
- Creating the next document from here: Converting between documents.
- Everything else on the page: The document page.
- Which path your business follows: Sales cycles.
- Fulfilment as the order sees it: Sales orders.