Invoices

Invoices

Invoices are created and sent to the customer for compensation of the time and material costs incurred to complete a job. A job may have multiple invoices issued to account for its total price. An invoice can be issued to any customer recorded in the database. Thus, it is possible to bill multiple customers or locations per job.

In Job Manager, billing may occur at any point in the job production cycle. A job in Job Manager changes its status according to the workflow: Open -> Closed -> Billed. Each invoice is assigned a type: "Partial", "Complete", or "Correction". The invoice type and the job status are interrelated.

After the job is created, its initial status is "Open". It is possible to issue any number of "Partial" invoices for an open job. If any invoice is issued for the job, the job cannot be deleted.

When production is complete, the user sets the job status to "Closed". At this point, it is possible to continue issuing "Partial" invoices or to issue one "Complete" (final) invoice to indicate that no further invoicing is intended. After the "Complete" invoice is saved to the database, the application sets the job status to "Billed".

Jobs with the status "Billed" are allowed to have only "Correction" invoices (any number) and cannot be modified (edited or deleted).

Figure: A Job and invoices issued to account for its total price. The current job status determines what kind of invoices are allowed to be issued at a particular point of the billing cycle.

Job Manager supports common invoicing scenarios utilizing eight predefined invoicing policies:

Deposit

Progress, Summary

Progress, Itemized

Progress, Itemized, Charges Grouped

Complete (Final)

Complete (Final), Charges Grouped

Correction

Correction, Charges Grouped

To create an invoice, the user selects an invoicing policy that determines the initial content of the invoice.

The "Deposit" policy may be used to reflect advance payments received from the customer before product is shipped. The type of the invoice is set to "Partial" in this case. Job Manager assumes that all the deposits made for the job must be balanced in future invoices.

Choosing one of the "Progress" policies creates a "Partial" invoice. It may be used to collect payments for a part of tasks completed or products made and shipped to the customer.

The "Complete (Final)" policies define the "Complete" type of the newly created invoice. It is used when the user intends to invoice the final part of tasks completed or products made and collect the remaining job price. "Complete" type invoices can be created only for closed jobs.

After the "Complete" (final) invoice is saved, only "Correction" type invoices may be issued. The "Correction" policy sets the "Correction" type for the invoice. The role of "Correction" invoices is to correct errors and issue credits, discounts, etc.

To help with accurate billing for the job when several invoices are issued, Job Manager matches invoice items to job invoiceables and dynamically calculates the suggested job price based on order items and/or job charges currently associated with the job. Details of the calculation depend on the job billing type. The suggested job price is used by the application as a target amount during invoice generation. For the details of the job price calculation, refer to the "Suggested Job Price" section.

Every invoice in the system changes its status according to the following workflow: Invoiced -> Posted. If the Accounting Integration feature is enabled two additional intermediate stages are added to the invoice workflow: Invoiced -> Approved -> Exported -> Posted. The invoice status is independent of the invoice type and of the fact that other invoices may exist for the same job. For further details, refer to the "Accounting Integration And Invoice Workflow" section.

Related Topics

"Invoices Home Page" on page 275

"Suggested Job Price" on page 277

"Understanding Invoice Information" on page 278

"Creating An Invoice" on page 295

"Reviewing An Invoice" on page 303

"Accounting Integration And Invoice Workflow" on page 307

"Invoicing Scenario Example" on page 310

"Invoice Distribution" on page 319

"Setting Up Invoice Backdating" on page 335

"Generating An Invoice List (Invoice Find)" on page 337

"Posting An Invoice" on page 341