Sales and Purchase Contras enable you to offset (contra) transactions between a Customer Record and a Supplier Record by creating a reciprocal link. It is possible to link a single Customer Record to a single Supplier Record (one-to-one basis), or to link a single record to multiple records (one-to-many basis) on either the Customer Record or Supplier Record.

Transactions are entered as normal. If a situation arises where it is more efficient to contra the transactions than to pay the separate invoice, this is achieved using the Contra Posting screen. Adjustment transactions are automatically created in each ledger with any settlement discounts taken into account.

You must select the currency and the analysis codes to be used. The default Discount Analysis is brought through. The reference and date will be used on the adjustments created by the contra process.

Note: The instructions below can be applied to either the Customer Record or Supplier Record.

The process of creating a one-to-many reciprocal link is identical to the above method, except that the links must be created from the 'many' record side.

For example, you have a Customer who you supply with computer services, and they provide office stationery to you from a number of specialist locations (each a separate Supplier Record). To create the reciprocal links, you will need to open each Supplier Record, using the above method, and link it to the Customer Record. When you open the Customer Record, the 'many' link will be shown in red and cannot be edited from this window.