Can one invoice cover multiple packing lists?

Yes. In Textile Wizard you select any number of packing lists for the same customer and generate a single invoice from all of them, with the line items carried across and freight, surcharge and tax calculated automatically.

What happens when a shipment goes out short?

The invoice bills the shipped quantity, and the shortfall automatically opens a backorder against that customer and style so the yardage still owed is tracked rather than forgotten.

The problem

From packing list to invoice, without typing it twice

The packing list says what left the building. The invoice says what the customer owes. In most fabric businesses, a person retypes the first into the second — and that is where the money leaks.

The two documents are not the same document

A packing list is a shipping record: style, colour, lot, box, pieces, quantity. An invoice is a financial record: quantity, unit price, amount, freight, surcharges, tax, terms and due date. They share the line items and nothing else.

Because they differ, people rebuild the invoice by hand — and a mistyped quantity or a stale price becomes a dispute weeks later, usually discovered when payment is short.

One invoice, several shipments

Customers frequently want a month of shipments on one invoice. Done by hand this means collating several packing lists and adding them up, which is exactly the task humans are worst at. The system should let you tick the packing lists and produce a single invoice from all of them.

Bill what shipped, not what was ordered

If the order was 250 yards and the warehouse cut 150, the invoice must say 150 — and the remaining 100 must survive somewhere as a backorder. Systems that invoice the ordered quantity overbill customers and lose the balance owed at the same time.

Questions

Can one invoice cover multiple packing lists?: Yes. In Textile Wizard you select any number of packing lists for the same customer and generate a single invoice from all of them, with the line items carried across and freight, surcharge and tax calculated automatically.
What happens when a shipment goes out short?: The invoice bills the shipped quantity, and the shortfall automatically opens a backorder against that customer and style so the yardage still owed is tracked rather than forgotten.