Invoicing Clients and Recording Payments on Proposals
Create an event invoice that bills one or more proposals, choose its purpose, record client payments by ACH, check, card or wire, and see how settlement marks a proposal Paid.
Invoices record what you have billed your client, and payments record what the client has paid. They live at the event level rather than inside a proposal, because one invoice often bills several proposals: a deposit on the main proposal, or an end-of-show invoice that settles the main proposal and every change order at once.
Invoices are under Resourcing, then Proposals, on the Invoices tab. Each proposal also has a Billing tab listing the invoices that bill it. BackOps records invoices and payments; it does not send invoices or take payments from the client.
Create an Invoice
Start the invoice
On the Invoices tab, select Create invoice. From a proposal, you can instead open its Billing tab and select Bill this proposal, which starts an invoice with that proposal and its client filled in.
Fill in the header
Enter the invoice number and, if you like, a description. Choose the Purpose, the Client, the Issued date and, optionally, a Due date.
Add the proposals it bills
Under Proposals, choose a proposal and enter the Amount billed to it. Select Add proposal to bill another proposal on the same invoice. Each proposal is listed with what is outstanding on it.
Create it
Purpose labels the billing moment and does not change any number:
| Purpose | Typical use |
|---|---|
| Deposit | An upfront payment before the show. |
| Progress | A payment partway through the work. |
| Balance | The remainder after a deposit or progress payments. |
| Full | The whole amount on one invoice. |
A deposit and a balance are two separate invoices against the same proposal. Each proposal can appear only once on a given invoice; to bill more, change its amount.
One Client per Invoice
An invoice bills one client, so every proposal on it must have the same client as the invoice. An invoice with no client can only bill proposals that also have no client. If the proposals you pick have a different client, the sheet tells you before you save. A change order created from unbilled scope always takes the client of the proposal it amends, so the two can share an invoice.
Invoicing does not depend on status. You can bill a deposit on a proposal that is still Sent. Until that proposal is accepted it has no revenue behind it, so the event shows the billed amount as Over-billed until the client accepts.
Record a Payment
Expand the invoice
Record the payment
Select Record payment. Enter the Amount and Date, and optionally the Method and a Reference such as a check number or confirmation.
Method is one of ACH, Check, Card, Wire or Other. Amounts are always positive; refunds and credits are not available yet. Payments can be edited in the expanded row. Deleting a payment is how you void it: the record is removed, and there is no voided state.
Settlement and Paid
An invoice is Settled when the payments recorded against it reach its total, and Open until then. There is no partially settled invoice: a deposit and a balance are two invoices, each settled on its own.
An accepted proposal becomes Paid automatically once every invoice that bills it is settled. If that stops being true, because a payment is deleted or reduced, an amount on an invoice goes up, a new invoice bills it, or a settling invoice is deleted, the proposal goes back to Accepted. Draft, Sent, Rejected and Canceled proposals are never moved by payments. When you delete a payment that would take proposals out of Paid, BackOps names them before you confirm.
Billed, Received and Outstanding
The Proposals and Invoices tabs show event totals, and each proposal's summary bar shows its own:
- Billed is the total of invoice amounts, whatever the proposal's status.
- Received counts a proposal's invoice amounts once each invoice is settled. A part payment on an open invoice appears in that invoice's own Received column on the Invoices tab, but not in the proposal's Received until the invoice is settled.
- Outstanding is Billed minus Received.
- Over-billed is how much has been billed beyond the revenue of accepted and paid proposals, and Over-collected is how much has been received beyond it. These appear when a proposal is reduced or un-accepted after billing, and Outstanding never goes below zero to show it.
Edit or Delete an Invoice
Select an invoice to edit its header and amounts. Changing the client checks every proposal on the invoice again. An invoice must bill at least one proposal; to remove the last one, delete the invoice. Deleting an invoice removes its amounts and payments, and a proposal that was Paid because of it goes back to Accepted.
A proposal that has been billed cannot be deleted. Remove it from its invoices first, or cancel it instead.