(MF-2) Working with Invoices
Last updated
Last updated
Let's take a look at how you work with invoices within Workshop Angel...
Invoices are created automatically when a client books on an Activity.
You can also create an invoice for something other than attendance at an activity in one of two places:
When an invoice is created, it is automatically allocated a sequential number, starting from the number 1. The numbers are different for invoices created in Test mode than in Live mode. If you would like your numbering system to start with a higher number, please contact us and we can arrange that for you.
(Note that If you are working with different businesses, each business will have its own number system, so you will have multiple invoices with the same number but from a different business.)
To create a credit note:
That's it! A credit note is just an invoice with a negative amount invoiced. It will now be labelled as a Credit Note in invoice listings, and you will be able to work with it in specific ways described in lesson MF-5.
A Credit Note is only really useful if you allocate it to a payment... details of how to do this are in the final parts of lesson MF-4.
Invoices can be found to work with in three locations:
Opening up an invoice brings you to the Manage Invoice window. The window has a menu at the top with four different views available:
Listing invoices from the Contacts and Finances areas will show a listing with a number of action icons:
Actions available by clicking on items from this listing are:
A standard invoice has the idea that it should paid, and Workshop Angel tracks which Payments are allocated towards an invoice being paid.
If a booking is cancelled, then you will have the concept of an invoice which no longer needs to be paid. This is known in Workshop Angel as a "Cancelled Invoice".
To view Cancelled Invoices:
A cancelled invoice is displayed in a greyed out colour and with the text "Cancelled".
Cancelling a booking also creates a credit note which balances out the original invoice amount. This is also considered a cancelled item, so appears greyed out.
Here is how these look in the Finances area:
As with most things in Workshop Angel, when an invoice is cancelled it is in reality just marked as cancelled, enabling it to be restored at a later date.
In order to maintain the integrity of your financial data, the following things will take place when you cancel an invoice:
All payment allocations will be removed from the invoice
The invoice will be marked as cancelled, meaning that it will no longer be listed as requiring payment.
A Credit Note for the invoiced amount will also be created. This is to ensure your invoice totals for your business are accurate. This credit note will also have a cancelled status, indicating that the amount does not need to be credited to the client through a refund.
As the cancelling of an invoice will result in the removal of any allocations of payments to that invoice, it will potentially result in you having payments which contain a credit.
Click here to read about managing payments containing a credit.
From an invoice listing:
From the Bookings - Payments area:
Restoring an invoice will result in the allocation to the invoice of payments from that contact which contain a credit.
In general, Workshop Angel does not allow you to just completely delete an invoice - you are required to go through the cancellation process described above. This is designed to maintain the integrity of the invoice listings from an accounting point of view.
However you may use the manual process of creating an invoice, and immediately find that you made a mistake and wish to start again. To deal with this situation, you can actually delete (forever!) a manually created invoice within 24 hours of creating it, as long as it is not allocated to any payments.
An invoice with this status will display a solid delete (bin) icon like this:
To delete a manually created invoice within 24 hours of creating it:
Once an invoice is created, the Summary screen allows you to see and potentially edit the basic information:
Invoice to: this cannot be changed once the invoice is created as it can cause issues around the related payments. If you create an invoice to the wrong person, you will need to cancel it and create a new one. If you just need to create a paper invoice which is addressed to another person or organisation then you can do this on the Send Messages screen.
Invoice date: this can be changed at any time.
Invoice description: this is automatically created for an activity booking, or manually added for other invoices (like in the example here). This can be changed at any time.
Activity: this will be automatically filled in for an activity booking, and can optionally be filled in if creating a separate invoice which relates to revenue for a specific activity.
Amount Invoiced: this cannot be changed here, but can be changed on the Change Invoice screen.
Payment Status: This is automatically updated as payments are allocated to the invoice.
When these fields are modified, the new values are updated immediately.
Note that if your accounting system bases your revenue on invoiced amounts rather than payment amounts then you must not change:
The date of the invoice to be in a different tax year.
The amount of an invoice that is in a previous tax year which has been accounted for.
The Send Messages screen allows you to:
Manually send Payment Reminder or Payment Overdue messages
View an online copy of the invoice which you can send your client a link to.
Add details your client has supplied for who the online invoice should be addressed to.
In most cases, you will probably send payment reminder messages from the Bookings - Payments area. However you can also send them directly from the invoice window, which can be especially useful for non-attendance invoices.
The message will be sent and the display updated to reflect this, along with the option to send the message again if necessary:
If the payment due date passes without the payment being made, a second button becomes available to allow sending of the Payment Overdue message:
You will sometimes find your client wants you to send them a copy of an invoice, so they can claim the amount as a business expense, either for themselves or for another organisation.
So you can cater for either situation, you can enter the details of who the invoice is to, independently of the name of your client it was booked against:
The invoice is viewed through a separate web page that both you and your client can see. To check how the invoice looks:
The invoice will look something like this, showing both the amount invoiced and the amount paid:
You can see that with this format, the invoice acts both as an invoice, and also a receipt for the money paid.
To send a link to this page showing the invoice to your client:
The email sent will use the Invoice Copy message from the associated activity, or if it is a non-attendance invoice, it will use the Invoice Copy message from the Default Messages. This message as supplied when you install Workshop Angel will read like this:
As you can see, it is important that the email highlights the need to use the print function within the browser to print the invoice to paper or a PDF file as they require.
We have seen here the core abilities you have for working with individual invoices... how to create them, cancel and restore them, work with the basic details, send payment reminders, and send a copy of the invoice to your client.
We have separate lessons about working with the final two screens of an invoice window - managing the Payment Schedule and individual Invoice Items.
In the next lesson, we take a look at how to work with individual payments, before moving on to the details how how payments are associated with invoices through the idea of allocations.
