Bill vs Invoice ?

Geert Janssens janssens-geert at telenet.be
Fri Jan 15 11:27:44 EST 2010


On Wednesday 13 January 2010, Geert Janssens 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.
> 
> Geert

Thank you all for your feedback. I keep this from it:
* "Bill" and "Invoice" have more or less the same meaning in most English 
countries, are often interchanged, although "Invoice" is more common in formal 
contexts.
* From Derek's reply I understand GnuCash uses "Bill" for vendors and 
"Invoice" for customers because
 a. they are short descriptions
 b. it can be helpful to distinguish between the two in translations

This point b. is important to keep in mind. Although English doesn't really 
distinguish between what a vendor sends you or what you send to your customer, 
this may be different in other languages.

I'll keep this information in consideration with future improvements in 
GnuCash.

Geert

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