Advance request or VAT invoice? What gets mixed up at acceptance

The moment a customer accepts, two things happen at once. You are happy, and you need the advance so you can order materials. The fastest way to get it is to copy the estimate into an invoice, change the title and send it. That is also the fastest way to create a document your accountant will spend an evening untangling.

Three documents, three moments

The mistake is treating the first document as the third. An advance request that is titled and numbered as a VAT invoice says the work was done and the VAT is due, on a job that has not started. In the best case your accountant corrects it with a credit note. In the worst case nobody notices until the year closes.

The payment plan is agreed before the yes

The clean version starts earlier than the acceptance. The payment plan is part of the estimate the customer accepts, next to the scope and the total. 30 % in advance and 70 % after the completion act is the default we use; facade work can run in stages with an act and an invoice per stage. Because the plan is accepted with the version, nobody has to negotiate it at the kitchen table, and nobody retypes it later.

• The advance request goes out with the acceptance, with a bank link. Bank payment first because it is free; card is optional and the fee is yours, or a separate line for business customers, never for consumers.
• Reminders follow a schedule you can see: advance at +3 and +7 days, invoices at −3, +1, +7 and +14. No automatic late fees.
• The job starts when the advance is matched from the bank, not when someone says it was sent.

The completion act is not paperwork

The act is the moment the customer confirms the work is what they accepted. Sign it on the phone at the walkthrough, with the handover checklist and the photos. Two things depend on it: the final VAT invoice is issued from it, and the warranty dates start from it. Skip the act and both of those float.

VAT, in the cases you actually meet

• A consumer in Lithuania: 21 % VAT on the invoice, the 14-day withdrawal notice handled with the proposal.
• A VAT-registered business in another EU country: the reverse-charge note and no VAT line.
• You are not a VAT payer: documents issued without VAT lines, which the company settings should say once, not every invoice.
• Cash at the handover: a cash receipt (KPO) signed on the phone. It counts as received when signed and goes to your accountant in the monthly export.

Corrections are documents too

An issued document is never edited. If something was wrong, the correction is a credit note or a void with a reason. That feels slower than fixing a number in Word, and it is the reason your document series has no gaps and your accountant trusts the export.

Doing it in Helmar.AI

In Helmar.AI the payment plan is frozen with the accepted version. The advance request goes out with the acceptance; the completion act is signed on the phone; the final PVM sąskaita faktūra is issued from the act; credit notes and KPO receipts are their own documents; and the i.SAF export, the nightly Rivilė sync and the B1, Centas and Finvalda exports carry it all to the accountant without retyping. Drafts work from day one, and issuing switches on once the adviser has approved the rules for your workspace.