A Clearing Document is an internal bookkeeping tool used to net, or offset, items against each other without any money actually moving and without changing the customer's overall balance. It links an outstanding (debit) invoice, payment or refund against a credit source – a credit/negative invoice, an unapplied payment or a house credit – so the two cancel each other out on the books.
It is not a payment-processing tool, a bank-reconciliation tool or a refund mechanism. No cash changes hands, and a Clearing Document is never exported to the GL or the ERP (NetSuite, QuickBooks) as real money. Its only job is to keep invoice and payment balances tidy, linked and auditable.
Closing out a credit memo against an outstanding invoice of the same amount.
Applying a floating (unapplied) payment or house credit to a specific invoice, instead of relying on automatic application.
"Self-clearing" a credit invoice that has nothing to offset against yet, turning it into a reusable floating house credit.
Settling a refund or negative credit directly against existing floating credit, with no invoice involved at all.
This feature only appears for customers on dynamic payment application. If an organisation is not configured that way, the Clearing Document screen is unavailable.
From the Customer Details page, open the Apply Credit (House Credit) dropdown and choose Clearing Document.
The screen lists four buckets of items for that customer:
Debit Invoices – Outstanding invoices with a balance owed.
Credit Invoices – Negative or credit invoices.
Open Debit Payments – Refunds or negative credits; payments that themselves owe money.
Floating Payments – Unapplied payments or house credits available as a credit source.
A Clearing Document can also be created automatically by the system during a NetSuite or QuickBooks ERP sync, to link records the ERP has already applied against each other (a "journal charge") so the link shows up on the BluBilling side too. This system path moves no balance either; it is for linking already-correct records, not fixing them.
A Clearing Document has two possible states:
Paid – The normal, active state once posted. This reuses the generic "Paid" label but does not mean cash was received; it means the document is in force.
Voided – Set when the document is reversed.
On the detail screen an active document is also marked reversible or not reversible. It becomes not reversible once the floating house credit it released has already been spent elsewhere. In that case the Reverse button is shown disabled with an explanatory tooltip.
Select items. Tick the checkboxes next to the invoices, payments or credits you want to net against each other. Every selection is for the full current balance of that item; there is no field to type a partial amount. As you tick items, the screen keeps a running Debit total, Credit total and Difference, so you can see at a glance whether the selection is balanced.
Clear Selection (optional) – Unticks everything if you want to start over.
Review. This button is enabled once your selection is one of: Balanced (debits exactly equal credits), Self-clearing (only credit/negative invoices ticked, no debit), or Partial (some debit and some credit but not an exact match; the remainder is handled automatically, see below).
Confirm screen. Shows exactly what posting will do: which invoices will close, which credit sources will be spent, and any new house credit that will be created. This preview is generated by the same logic that posts the document, so what you see is exactly what you get.
Confirm and Post. This writes the Clearing Document. Every invoice/payment link touched is stamped with the same Clearing Document ID so the whole group can be traced and reversed together. You will see "Cleared by #ID" on the affected invoices and payments afterwards.
If you only select credit/negative invoices (self-clearing), the system closes them to zero and creates a floating house credit of the same amount for later use. If your ticked credits are greater than your ticked debits, the surplus becomes that same floating house credit.
If your ticked debits are greater than your ticked credits, the shortfall is simply left outstanding on the oldest unfunded debit. Nothing is forced.
A payment that owes money (a Refund or negative Credit) can be offset directly against a floating payment or house credit with no invoice involved at all.
Every line must use the item's full balance. No partial amounts.
A floating payment or credit can never be cleared on its own. It always needs a debit to apply to.
A payment already linked to an active (non-reversed) clearing cannot be reused in another one.
From the Clearing Document's detail screen, click Reverse Clearing Document (only shown when the status is Paid and the document is still reversible), enter a note explaining why, and confirm.
Reversing a Clearing Document:
Restores every invoice and payment it touched to its pre-clearing balance, marks the original links as reallocated (kept for history and visible on the detail screen) and voids any house-credit legs the document created.
Flips the document's status to Voided.
Is always all-or-nothing. You reverse the entire document as a group and cannot reverse individual lines within it. As the confirmation message puts it: "This reverses the entire clearing document as a group. The customer balance is unchanged."
A document cannot be reversed if the floating house credit it released has already been spent elsewhere. Reversing it would leave a dangling reference, so the Reverse button is disabled with a tooltip explaining why.
Note: if you try to reverse the underlying payment itself from the payment's own detail page, and that payment is part of an active Clearing Document, the system redirects you into this same group reversal instead of reversing the payment alone.
Only these roles can create, view or reverse Clearing Documents:
System Superuser
System Support
Admin
Supervisor
Sales Agents can see the Apply Credit button on Customer Details, but not the Clearing Document link itself. That option is only visible to the roles above.
Credit memo offsets an open invoice
Select: a $500 outstanding invoice (debit) and a $500 credit invoice (credit).
Result: both close to zero, balance unchanged, each shows "Cleared by #ID".
Applying a floating payment to a specific invoice
Select: an unapplied payment and the invoice you want it to pay.
Result: the invoice closes using exactly that payment, instead of relying on automatic application.
Self-clearing a credit invoice with nothing to offset yet
Select: only the credit/negative invoice (no debit).
Result: the credit invoice closes to zero and a floating house credit of the same amount is created for future use.
Settling a refund against existing floating credit
Select: a refund (owes money) and unused floating credit.
Result: they offset directly against each other; no invoice involved and no cash moves.
ERP import reconciliation (system triggered)
Select: not applicable, automatic.
Result: links a payment or credit already applied in NetSuite against a "journal charge" to its BluBilling invoice, with zero balance movement.
Does this move real money? No. A Clearing Document never moves cash and is never exported to the GL or ERP as a financial transaction. It only re-links existing balances.
Why can't I enter a partial amount? Every line clears the item's full current balance by design, to keep the netting unambiguous and fully auditable. Partial outcomes (leftover credit or leftover debit) are handled automatically after you post.
Can I undo just one line of a Clearing Document? No. Reversal is all-or-nothing for the whole document.
Why is the Reverse button disabled? The floating house credit this document released has already been spent elsewhere. Reversing it would leave that spend pointing at nothing, so it is blocked.
Where do I see history on an invoice or payment that was part of a clearing? Look for "Cleared by #ID" on the invoice or payment, and open that Clearing Document's detail screen for the full breakdown, including any reversed (reallocated) lines.
I don't see the Clearing Document option at all. Either your role does not have access (see Who can use this), or the customer's organisation is not configured for dynamic payment application.