This guide covers creating and editing invoices, managing invoice statuses, and collecting payment.
Invoicing is the process of creating and sending invoices to clients for payment. It is an important part of the revenue cycle for any business. Invoices belong to a project and are accessible to Project and Leadership roles.
Invoices have the following attributes:
A project must have a client assigned to it to have invoices.
Invoices are accessible by navigating to a project's detail screen and clicking on the Billing tab to see just that project's invoices, or by clicking on the Invoices link in the side navigation bar to see all invoices for all projects.
In the project view, all invoices regardless of status are visible.
In the organization invoice view, invoices are organized into sections based on their status and due date: Active invoices (have been sent to the client and are not overdue), Overdue invoices (have been sent to the client and are overdue), Upcoming invoices (scheduled and draft invoices that are to be sent within the next two weeks), and Recently Completed invoices (paid or written off invoices in the last week).
Invoices are created in the Billing tab of a project by clicking either Schedule Invoice or Draft Invoice.
Create a new draft invoice to start preparing an invoice to be sent. This generates a new invoice in Draft status and it is immediately editable.
A scheduled invoice is a placeholder for a future invoice (it has a total amount and an expected date). Scheduled invoices help you stay on top of which invoices need to go out by surfacing the need to send an invoice out at a specific date, and help you manage revenue leakage by comparing the actual invoice to the expected amount.
When a project is created from a closed deal, the invoice schedule from the deal is populated as scheduled invoices in the project to help you track the invoice schedule of the project. To create an invoice from a scheduled invoice, click on the menu button in the first column of an invoice row and select Draft from this invoice. If a project has a scheduled invoice, clicking the Draft Invoice button will give you the option to use an existing scheduled invoice or create a brand new off-schedule invoice.
To edit an invoice, click the menu button in the invoice row and select Manage or Edit. If this invoice is a scheduled invoice, you'll see a simple dialog to edit the expected date and amount. For all other invoices, the full invoice editor will appear (see Invoice Editor below).
The invoice editor displays a full-featured command panel for editing the details of an invoice and managing its status and payments on the left-hand pane. As you make changes to the invoice's details, a realtime preview of the invoice PDF is shown in the right-hand pane.
To enter into editing mode, click Edit Invoice in the top action bar. Any change to an invoice must be saved by clicking the Save button in the bottom right corner of the editor panel.
At the top of the editor panel is the invoice header, which contains the invoice number, date, net terms and due date, and PO number. The invoice number is generated automatically when an invoice is changed to the Sent status, and is sequential to the last invoice sent by your organization. By changing either net terms the due date will automatically update, and vice versa.
Underneath the header is the invoice items section, where you can add, edit, and remove line items from the invoice. Invoice items have an editable name, description, quantity and amount. The item total is calculated from the quantity and amount. Typically, the quantity is a number of hours and the amount is the billable rate for those hours, but it can be anything you like. To add invoice items, enter editing mode and click the + button in the Items header. To delete invoice items, click the X button in the bottom left corner of the item.
When working with a Time and Materials project, invoice items are automatically generated by approved timesheets for the project. However, you can edit these line items in two ways:
In the bottom left corner of the invoice item row is a list of all approved timesheet entries for the invoice item. You can selectively enable or disable individual timesheet entries from being included in the invoice item, and the quantity will be adjusted. When a timesheet entry is included in an invoice, it is consumed and no longer available to be added to another invoice.
In the bottom right corner of the invoice item row is an Adjust button that allows you to override the generated item by setting quantity and amount manually. Note that this does not impact timesheet entry consumption - if you edit the item to be a different quantity, all of the selected timesheet entries are consumed.
Adjustments are used to apply discounts or credits to an invoice. Discounts can be a percentage or a total amount, and credits are a total amount. These adjustments appear on the invoice and adjust the subtotal from summing all invoice items into the total amount due for the invoice.
Projects that have a credit balance (from previous invoices, such as a down payment) will display that balance on the bottom of the invoice editor panel to help you add adjustments if necessary.
To send a draft invoice, click Finalize & Download from the top action menu. This will set the invoice status to Sent, assign an invoice number and download the invoice PDF to your computer to be sent to the client.
You can still edit an invoice after it has been sent, but you cannot change the invoice number. You can re-download the updated PDF at anytime by clicking PDF in the top action menu.
To delete an invoice in draft status, click on the Actions menu in the top action bar and select Delete. This will simply delete the invoice.
Once an invoice has been sent and assigned an invoice number, it can no longer simply be deleted. Instead, you'l be able to Void the invoice from that action menu. Voiding an invoice will set the invoice status to Void and it will no longer be included in any invoice totals or calculations, but the record of it existing will remain in the system for accounting purposes.
Once an invoice has been sent, you can record payments against it by clicking Record Payment in the action bar (or from the invoice list menu in the Billing tab of the project screen).
Record the payment and date, and any optional information like notes or payment id (for reconciling with other platforms) and click Record Payment in the record payment dialog.
Once the first payment is recorded, the invoice will be updated to show the payment and the remaining balance. You can record multiple payments against an invoice, and the invoice will be updated to show the total payments and the remaining balance.
If the total payments equal the invoice total, the invoice status will change to Paid. Otherwise, the invoice will remain in Partially Paid status.
For down payment invoices, any recorded payments are applied as a credit payment and become a part of the credit balance of the project.
If an invoice is determined to be uncollectible, it can be written off by clicking Write Off Remaining Balance in top action bar. This will set the invoice status to Written Off, payments will no longer be accepted for the invoice, and the invoice balance will be set to $0.00. A write-off appears as a special payment type in the list of payments.
On the global invoice manager, you can see the total amount of your accounts receivable, booked business, and year to date collections.
On the project overview, you can see total billed, accounts receivable and remaining budget in the Project Overview.
