Invoices and money

Invoices, credit notes and subscriptions, and the tax rates and currencies they are written in.

The usual path

Estimate → accepted → Invoice → Payment. Every step carries the lines, taxes and totals forward, so nothing is retyped and nothing drifts. Taking the money itself — recording payments, refunds, batch payments and online gateways — is on Taking payments.

Estimates and proposals

An estimate is a priced quote with line items. A proposal is a longer document — a covering pitch with pricing inside it. Both can be sent, accepted or declined, and both convert to an invoice in one step. They have a page of their own: Estimates and proposals.

Turn on When an estimate is accepted, raise the invoice automatically under Settings → Estimates & proposals and accepting an estimate raises a draft invoice for you.

Invoices

Sales & invoicing → Invoices. Every invoice you are allowed to see — a role limited to its own customers sees only theirs, here and in the totals.

• Outstanding, Overdue and Paid — what is still owed on invoices that have gone out, the part of that past its due date, and the value of invoices paid in full. They count every invoice you can see, not only the ones the filter shows, and they add amounts together whatever their currency.
• Search invoices matches the number, the reference or the customer's name. Any status and Any customer narrow the list; press Filter.
• Number, Date, Due, Total and Status sort the list; Starred only, Per page and saved filters work as on every list (see Finding things).
• Balance is the total less what has been paid or credited.

Tick invoices to act on several at once: Download PDFs, Email to the customer (see PDFs and sending documents) and Delete. Print and Export take the list as filtered (see Exporting).

An invoice's status follows its balance rather than being set by hand:

Writing an invoice

New invoice opens the form. It starts as a draft dated today, due fourteen days later (the Due after on Settings → Documents), with you as the sale agent, and with the note and terms set there already filled in.

Any custom fields you have added to invoices appear on the form too (see Customising). Press Create invoice; the number is given out at that moment, and you land on the invoice's page.

The lines

Add line adds an empty line; Add from item library... adds one filled in from an item — its name, description, rate and taxes, which you can then change. Each line has a Description (required), an optional longer description, Qty, Rate, a Tax and a Second tax. The removes a line; remove the last one and an empty line takes its place, because an invoice needs something to charge for.

Under the lines: a Discount as a percentage or a Fixed amount, and an Adjustment (positive or negative) for rounding or a one-off. The totals update as you type; the server works them out again when you save.

How the totals are worked out

1. Each line is quantity × rate.
2. The discount is applied to the subtotal, and spread across the lines in proportion.
3. Tax is worked out per line, on the discounted amount, and rounded per line.
4. Any adjustment is added last.

Each line keeps its own copy of the tax's name and rate, so changing or deleting a tax rate later never restates an invoice already written.

Per-invoice controls

Four things on an invoice that are nobody else's business, all under This invoice at the foot of the form:

Whatever is switched on is repeated in a line at the top of the invoice's page, so somebody wondering why no reminder went out does not have to open the form to find out. A customer can also be taken off online payment altogether — see Leads and customers. Their invoices then say This customer does not pay online, and show your offline instructions instead of a Pay button.

Editing an invoice

Edit on the invoice's page opens the same form; press Save changes. Once a payment has been recorded against an invoice its lines can no longer be saved — the form says This invoice has payments recorded against it. Remove them before editing the lines. Otherwise the payments would point at an amount the customer never agreed to.

The invoice's page

The invoice as the customer sees it, with Paid and Balance due under the total. When credit has been applied the two are shown apart, as Payments received and Credit applied, so the balance is always explainable. On the right, Payments lists each one with its method and reference, and any refunds against it.

Any workflows your automations offer to run by hand appear beside them (see Automations).

Changing the status

Status offers Draft, Sent and Cancelled; the rest follow the balance. Marking it Sent hands the status back to the balance — an invoice with money against it becomes Part paid or Paid straight away — and the first time it happens the customer's contacts who may see invoices are sent a New invoice notice, as your notification settings allow (see Notifications). Draft takes it back out of circulation; Cancelled withdraws it.

Recording a payment

Record payment on a sent invoice. The Amount starts at the outstanding balance and cannot be more than it; pick the Date, the Method (or Unspecified), a Transaction reference and a Note, plus any custom fields for payments. Press Record payment. A draft refuses: Send the invoice before recording a payment against it. Removing and refunding payments is on Taking payments.

Deleting invoices

Tick them on the list and press Delete in the strip that appears. The invoice's own page has no delete button. You need the permission to delete invoices.

E-invoicing

E-invoice on an invoice downloads it as UBL 2.1 following EN 16931 — the European semantic standard, in the syntax nearly every member state accepts and the one Peppol carries. It is what your customer's accounting system reads so nobody has to retype the invoice.

A draft has no e-invoice: an EN 16931 document needs a real invoice number.

The amount in words

The invoice PDF can print the total spelled out under the figures — "Four thousand two hundred fifty dollars and sixty cents". A convention with a reason behind it: a figure can be altered by one stroke of a pen and a sentence cannot, and several jurisdictions expect it. It is off by default; switch it on with Write the total out in words on the PDF on Settings → Documents.

It is written in the customer's own language where your server has PHP's intl extension, and in English otherwise. The currency's name is what gets spelled out, so name your currencies as you would say them aloud — "Pound" rather than "Pound Sterling". The pennies are spelled with the currency's Subunit name (see Currencies), or "cents" when it has none.

Credit notes

Sales & invoicing → Credit Notes. A credit note records money owed back to a customer: a cancelled day's work, a returned item, an overcharge. The figure at the top, Credit available to customers, adds up what is left on every open note you can see. Search by number, reference or customer, and filter by status:

Print and Export work as on the other lists: the export (CSV or Excel) gives each note's number, customer, date, currency, subtotal, tax, total, used, remaining, status and reference, follows the search and filter on screen, and needs the Credit notes → export permission (see Exporting).

Writing a credit note

New credit note on the list, or Credit note on an invoice. Started from an invoice, it arrives with that invoice's customer, currency, issuing company, discount and lines, and the invoice number as its Reference; the banner says Started from invoice …. Remove any lines you are not crediting. Only an invoice you could open yourself is copied.

The form is the invoice's: Customer, Credit note date, Currency, Reference, Project, the lines, discount and adjustment, and the notes. Press Create credit note. It is numbered and opens as Open.

The credit note's page

The note, with Used and Remaining credit under the total, and Credit used on the right. The buttons:

• PDF — the credit note as a PDF.
• Edit — the same form; press Save changes. Offered only while none of the credit has been used and the note is not void, because changing the lines would change the total under entries already recorded.
• Void — after a confirmation (A voided credit note can no longer be used.), marks it void. Also only while none of it has been used.
• Apply to invoice and Refund — spending the credit, below. Offered while credit remains; Apply to invoice only when the customer has an unpaid invoice.
• Delete — see below. Only while none of the credit has been used.

Applying credit to an invoice

Apply to invoice lists the same customer's unpaid invoices with their balances. The Amount fills in as whichever is smaller, the invoice's balance or the credit left; pick a Date and press Apply credit. The invoice's balance falls exactly as if it had been paid, and its page shows the credit under Credit applied, linked back to the note. Refused: more than the credit left, more than the invoice owes, an invoice belonging to another customer, a draft invoice, or a void note.

Refunding credit

When the customer wants the money rather than a discount on the next bill: Refund, then the Amount (up to what is left), the Date, Refunded via and a Note, and Record refund. This writes down that you paid it back; the money itself goes back your own way.

Undoing a use of the credit

Every application and refund is listed under Credit used. Remove on one, then confirm: the credit goes back on the note and any invoice it was applied to owes that amount again.

Deleting a credit note

The button at the top of the note deletes it after a confirmation (Delete this credit note?) and takes you back to the list. It needs the permission to delete credit notes, and is offered only while none of the credit has been applied or refunded. A note that has been used is refused — Credit has already been used from this note. Remove those entries first, then delete it. — because the invoices it credited would otherwise stay credited from a note nobody could see. Voiding is usually the better choice for a note entered by mistake, because it keeps the number sequence whole.

Subscriptions (recurring invoices)

Sales & invoicing → Subscriptions. A subscription raises an invoice on a schedule — every so many days, weeks, months or years — with an optional end. The cards show how many are Active, how many are Due to bill today, and what the active ones add up to per cycle (Recurring per cycle; different cycles and currencies are added together as they stand). Search by name or customer, filter by status, and the list is in order of Next bill.

Setting one up

Then the lines, exactly as on an invoice. Press Create subscription. It starts as a draft: nothing is billed until you make it active.

The subscription's page

Schedule shows the cycle, the first bill, the end, the cycles completed, when it last invoiced, the payment terms and whether invoices go out as sent or draft. What gets billed is the lines and the total per cycle; Invoices raised lists every invoice it has made. While it is active a line at the top says when the next invoice is due.

• Status — Draft, Active, Paused or Cancelled. Making it active for the first time sets the first invoice for the First bill date. Pausing keeps the next date, so a paused subscription whose date has already passed is due the moment it is resumed.
• Bill now — appears when an active subscription's next bill date has arrived. After a confirmation it raises the invoice straight away, moves the schedule on, and opens the new invoice. It needs the permission to create invoices.
• Edit — the same form; press Save changes. Editing never moves the next bill date, so rewording a subscription does not bill the customer again.
• Delete — see below.

How billing runs

Once a day, at 02:00, the scheduler raises an invoice for every active subscription that is due, so it needs the cron entry from Installation. Each invoice is dated on the scheduled day rather than the day the scheduler got to it, and the next date is worked out from the schedule, so the billing day stays put.

Billing stops when the next invoice would fall after the end date, not when today passes it. That is what stops a subscription raising one last invoice it should not have. A subscription that has run its course is marked Completed.

The lines are copied onto each invoice with their tax names and rates, so a later change to a rate does not restate invoices already raised.

Deleting a subscription

The button on the subscription's page deletes it after a confirmation (Delete this subscription? The invoices it raised are kept.); it needs the permission to delete subscriptions. To stop one billing while keeping its history on screen, set it to Cancelled instead: it never bills again, and the invoices it raised stay as they are either way.

Settings → Documents

Settings → Documents. How invoices, estimates, proposals and credit notes are numbered, and what a new one starts with. Opening it needs Settings → view; saving needs Settings → edit. One Save changes at the foot stores the whole screen.

Numbering

One row per kind of document — Invoices, Estimates, Proposals, Credit notes:

New invoices, estimates and proposals

What a customer may do with an estimate or proposal, and what happens when they accept one, is on the neighbouring screen, Settings → Estimates & proposals (see Estimates and proposals).

Tax rates

Settings → Tax rates. The rates offered on every line, item and expense. The list shows each Name, its Rate and whether it is Active; the default rate is badged Default and listed first.

Add tax rate, or the on a row:

Press Add tax rate or Save changes. The removes a rate after a confirmation. Documents already written keep their own copy of its name and rate; items and expenses that used it are left with no tax.

Currencies

Settings → Currencies. Every currency a document can be written in, with an Example of how it prints and its Rate. One is the Base: the default on new documents, and the one every rate is measured against.

Add currency, or the on a row:

Press Add currency or Save changes. The very first currency a workspace adds becomes its base whatever the switch says.

The removes a currency after a confirmation. The base has no delete button, and is refused anyway — Set another currency as the base before removing this one. Documents written in a removed currency are left without a currency, so remove only one nothing was ever written in.

Addresses on this page

For reference and for anyone scripting against the panel. Everything here needs somebody signed in to the workspace whose role allows it; anybody else is refused.