Some customers don't pay on the day. A client whose visits are funded by a plan, a company paying for its staff, a family paying for a child's sessions. For them, close out the visit as usual and send an invoice instead of taking payment. The visit is recorded, the invoice goes out as a PDF, and the money is tracked until it arrives.
Invoicing is part of the paid plan.
Turning it on
Open Settings, then Payments, and find the Invoicing card. Turn on Send invoices. The card then holds:
- Due date: how many days after an invoice is sent it falls due. Seven is the default.
- Customer reference: what you call the number a customer carries on their invoices, if they have one - an NDIS number, a client number, a claim number. Once you name it, the field appears on every customer's profile.
- Prefix and Next number: your invoices are numbered in order, INV-0001, INV-0002 and so on. If you're moving from another tool, set the next number to carry on your sequence.
- Extra details under your business name: a provider number, a registration, anything a fund needs to see.
- Payment details: where the money goes. These print on every invoice exactly as you type them.
- Send a confirmation when an invoice is paid: on by default. When you mark an invoice paid, whoever it was sent to gets a short note saying so.
- Let them pay online: adds a Pay online button to the email and the invoice, charged to your own card account, the same as a deposit. It needs card payments set up first. Your bank details stay on the invoice either way.
- Send reminders: one note before the due date, then a reminder every so many days after it, up to three. They go to whoever the invoice went to, never to the client behind it, and stop the moment it's paid.
Sending one
At close-out, or on a new sale, the bill asks Is this being paid now? Choose Send an invoice. Nothing is recorded as paid, and the invoice opens on its own page with the visit already on it:
- Client: the customer, with their reference under your label (their NDIS number, say). Type it here the first time and it's saved to the customer, so every invoice after already has it.
- Invoice to: who gets it. That's often not the customer - a plan manager, an employer, a parent. Their name and email are remembered for the next invoice for the same customer, and a tick sends the customer a copy too.
- Item code and description on each line. If you've saved an item code on the service, it's already there; type one and tick Use this code from now on to save it to the service.
- The due date, and your payment details.
Check it, then Email invoice. It goes as a PDF, numbered, with your business details, the customer, what was done, what's owed and how to pay. Until it's emailed, the invoice is a draft and has no number.
While invoicing is on, the Close out your day panel closes each visit through the same question instead of sweeping them all as paid in one tap: Close out on the row opens the bill so you can say paid now, or an invoice.
Paying online, and reminders, on one invoice
The settings say what a new invoice starts with. Each invoice keeps its own two switches under Invoice to: turn off Let them pay online for one that has to go through a fund's own process, or Send reminders for one you'd rather chase yourself. Under the reminders switch the invoice says when the next one goes, and lists the ones already sent.
Send a reminder on the invoice, or on its row in Payments, sends one now. A reminder you send yourself never counts toward the three.
Every invoice has its own link, the one the email carries. Copy their link puts it on your clipboard for a message of your own. Whoever opens it sees that invoice only - the document, the PDF, and a way to pay if you've allowed it. A paid invoice can be read there but not paid again; a part-paid one offers only what's left.
Keeping track
On the Payments page every invoiced sale wears its invoice number and where it stands: Draft, Owing, Overdue, Partly paid or Paid. Filter the list to just invoices, or just the overdue ones, and the Owing tile shows what's outstanding right now. The customer's profile and the booking's details show the same.
The Takings report counts an invoice on the day the money arrives, not the day it was sent. Until then the report says how much was billed and is not yet paid.
When the money arrives
Open the invoice and choose Record a payment. Enter the amount, the day it landed and how it came - a bank transfer, usually. Part payments are fine; the invoice reads Partly paid until the rest arrives. Once it's paid in full, it's finished: nothing on it can change, and a confirmation goes to whoever it was sent to.
A payment made online lands by itself: the invoice is marked paid, the money shows on the Payments page like any other card payment, and you get a notification. Refund it from the Payments page if you ever need to, the same as any other sale.
Changing or cancelling one
While an invoice is still owing, Edit items opens the bill so you can correct what was charged. Email it again and the same number goes out marked as updated.
Cancel withdraws an invoice nothing has been paid on. If it had already been sent, you can tell the recipient it's cancelled. Cancelling undoes the sale behind it as well, so the visit can be closed out again if it needs to be.
Money that came in against an invoice is refunded from the Payments page, the same as any other sale. Refunding it puts the invoice back to Owing for the amount that went back, whichever way it went back, because an invoice is a request for money until it's cancelled. From there, record the payment again when it comes in, or cancel the invoice if it's not coming.