Bill vs Invoice ?

[Robert Heller]

At Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:04:42 +0100 Geert Janssens <janssens-geert at telenet.be> wrote:

> 
> As a non-native English speaker, I am wondering about the difference between 
> the terms "Bill" and "Invoice".
> 
> Gnucash uses a "Bill" to indicate a document provided by a vendor and 
> "Invoice" for a document provided by a customer.
> 
> But in my native language (Dutch, being from Belgium) the literal translations 
> of these words have a subtle difference in meaning. Only the Dutch word for 
> "Invoice" (being "Factuur") is used in a business context. So we have Customer 
> Invoices and Vendor Invoices if we want to differentiate between these two.
> 
> The Dutch word for "Bill" ("Rekening") is mostly used more informally, or 
> outside of business contexts. I would ask for the bill in a restaurant for 
> example.
> 
> So how is this in English ? And is it different or the same in the various 
> English speaking countries (UK, USA, Canada, Australia,...) ?
> 
> Feedback is appreciated, it may help me improve the wording in the Gnucash 
> business functions.

As a business, I send invoices to my customers.  My customers then send me
payment in response.  I believe in American English, 'bill' and
'invoice' are sometime used interchangably, at least at an informal
level.  I am sure my customers treat the 'invoice' I send them as a 'bill'.

> 
> Geert
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-user mailing list
> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> -----
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
> 
>                                                                                                                              

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software        -- Download the Model Railroad System
http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
heller at deepsoft.com       -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/