Progress Invoicing
Before you issue a progress invoice, customize the invoice to show additional details, such as amounts previously billed and the remaining amount to be billed.
To issue a progress invoice:
If you want to invoice for a specific amount of work completed in a project:
- Set up each activity as a service item. For each service item, specify a unit of measure and a enter a price per unit. For example, set up a service activity called Foundation, specify the unit of measure as square foot, and a price of $50/square foot.
- Create a sales order to list all the project components, including a line item for each service activity, using the total amount of work measured as a quantity. For your Foundation service activity on a 2000 square foot property, enter 2000 in the Quantity field.
- When the foundation is 50% complete and you are ready to issue an invoice, simply retrieve the sales order, change the transaction type to Invoice, and enter the amount complete in the quantity column (1000). The remaining work (1000) will appear in the Back Order column.
When preparing the invoice, you can also allocate the amount to the project with the Allocate button (or click in the Allocate column) at the same time.
If you want to invoice for a percentage of total work completed in a project:
- Set up each activity as a flat fee service item. For each service item, specify the unit of measure as Each, and set the price as the total price for completing the task. For example, enter a Regular price for Foundation at $100,000.00 ($50/sq ft x 2000 sq ft).
- Create a sales order to list all the project components, including a line item for each service activity.
- When it comes time to bill your customer and you have completed 50% of a 2000 square foot foundation, you can enter a fractional quantity of the work complete (enter 0.50 in the Quantity field) and the price. The remaining amount will appear in the Back Order column.
Tip: You can also set up a recurring transaction to keep track of what has been billed on a project. Each time you want to issue an invoice, recall the recurring transaction, change the amounts on the invoice as necessary, store the recurring entry again to effect the changes in the stored entry, and then print and post the new invoice.