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Billing FAQs |
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Applies to: [x] C&P Classic [x] C&P Pro [ ] Job Tracker [x] C&P SQL [x] My C&P! See also: |
Summary: Answers to the most frequently-asked Clients & Profits
billing questions. Billing jobs and clients is exceptionally flexible
in Clients & Profits. The entire pre-billing, invoicing, and Accounts
Receivable process is highly refined and automated, so billing is
quick, accurate, and easy. Below you'll find answers to the most commonly-asked
questions about billing with Clients & Profits.
Q. What's the absolutely fastest, easiest way to create invoices for everything that's unbilled? Use the Auto-bill function. It creates client invoices for any job
with unbilled amounts automatically and without any data entry. All
you do is select a range of jobs by billing status (which lets you
limit which jobs are billed at one time -- for more details see the
A/R chapter in your User Guide), an option client number (or leave
it as "ALL" to bill everyone), the invoice date, the first invoice
number and the period. You can also choose the option to show hours
billed. Once the invoices are saved, they can be fully edited and
proofed before being posted and printed. Q. Which reports tell me what needs to be billed? The Billing Hot Sheet is the best basic report for seeing what's
unbilled. The report lists unbilled jobs by client, showing each job's
estimate (including change orders), billings to date, and unbilled
totals. It makes a great billing checklist, too, since it displays
the steps in your "billing workflow" (i.e., your billing process).
A separate page is printed for each client, so it's an ideal worksheet
for managing the billing process for different account teams. While
the Billing Hot Sheet gives you a great Big Picture, job summaries
and job cost reports show the task-by-task and cost-by-cost detail.
These reports, which are printed for one job ticket, show just what
account service needs to decide what to bill now. Q. Is there an easy way to bill a client based on their purchase orders? Yes. Purchase orders can be pre-billed in a snap from the Purchase
Orders window (choose Edit > Pre-bill). A pre-bill invoice will
show a single billing amount (i.e., line item) for the gross amount
of the purchase order. (In addition, other POs can be added to a pre-bill
invoice by entering the invoice's number in the Pre-bill PO window.)
A pre-bill invoice can contain orders from any job and task for the
client. Q. Can I invoice a client for more than one job? Yes. The "multi-job billing" invoice type lets you enter any number
of different jobs and tasks on the same invoice. Because you control
which jobs and tasks get billed, the tasks aren't entered automatically
as in other billing types, so the invoice takes longer to enter. But
like other invoices, the task's unbilled amount is copied from the
job ticket to the invoice automatically, saving time. Q. How can I edit the bill-to address when the invoice needs to be sent to someone else? Each invoice has its own billing address. The billing address is
copied from the bill-to client account, but can be changed in the
Invoice Options window. If you change the invoice's billing address,
the client's account won't be changed (i.e., you'll only see it on
this printed invoice). Q. Can I bill for miscellaneous fees, such as consulting, that have no job ticket? Yes. The "miscellaneous" billing type lets you bill for non-job charges.
You can enter as many line items as you want and there's lots of space
for a description of each item. When the invoice is posted, its billing
amounts will update the General Ledger and the client account, but
won't affect job tickets. Q. I have clients that don't need to see all the detail on the invoice. Can I hide some things? Yes. There are many customizable settings in the Invoice Options
window that make billing more flexible. For example, tasks can be
grouped together to only show the group name and totals -- the client
won't see the individual tasks themselves. Or, show the tasks but
hide the task amount to show just the group totals. As an alternative,
certain tasks can also be rolled up into each other by selecting the
"roll up billing amounts by task" option. This option lets you combine
similar tasks on the printed invoice, so the client is less likely
to question a particular amount. The "show job description" and "show
hours billed" options copy details from the job ticket, which some
clients may wish to see -- and some clients shouldn't. All of these
options are cosmetic, so only affect how the invoice looks when its
printed. They don't affect how the invoice is added or posted. This
means you can experiment with different invoice options to choose
the ones you like best. Q. How about the client who wants to see everything and then some. What options should I use? The "show items, amounts, and previous billings" option gives the
client the most detail on their printed invoices. Together with the
"show job description," your clients should see everything they need
to approve the invoice for payment. Q. Is the invoice header and disclaimer customizable? Yes. The invoice header (which is usually "Invoice") is set in Preferences
(choose Setup > Preferences > Invoice Options). The invoice
disclaimer can also be preprogrammed here. This disclaimer is copied
to every new invoice, where is can be further modified for a specific
client billing. (Changing an invoice's disclaimer doesn't affect the
default disclaimer in Preferences.). Q. What is the difference between an advance and a retainer? An advance billing is limited to a particular job ticket, is based on that job's estimate, and is applied only to that job's billings. A retainer is much more flexible as it can be applied to any A/R invoice created for a client regardless of the job number, as well as a client's miscellaneous or finance charge billings. The only limitation is the retainer is applied to only the client for whom the retainer was created. Both advances and retainers are treated as a liability, not income; this means they appear on your Balance Sheet as a short-term debt to a client (because you'll potentially have to give the money back if the job is canceled). Q. We just bill the client one fee -- half at the start and half at the end. How would it be billed? You'd add an "estimate billing" invoice and choose to bill 50% of
the estimate. The invoice will calculate half of each of the task's
billing amounts. At the end of the job, you can bill the other half
of the estimate and choose to include change orders if you need to.
(If you don't want the estimate billing to appear as income on your
financials, add it as an "advance billing" instead. The advance billing
credits a liability account instead of income, then is applied later
to the job's final billing as a payment). Q. Can I manually enter invoice numbers? Yes, but it might cause problems later. Invoices are typically numbered
automatically based on a invoice counter in A/R preferences (see Setup
> Preferences > A/R). When an invoice is added, you'll see the
next invoice number instantly. You can manually number the invoice
by typing the new number over the next automatic number. As you tab
past the invoice number, Clients & Profits will check to see if
its been used before. (Note: The invoice number counter in Preferences
will be incremented automatically based on the previous number --
not your manually-entered invoice number.) Since the same number can't
be used twice, don't use the job number as the invoice number, for
example. Q. Why does invoice number "43" always come up as the last-added invoice when the last invoice I entered was number "1616"? The invoice number field is alpha-numeric, which means it can contain
both letters, numbers, and characters (like dashes, periods, etc.).
So when you're finding the "last" invoice number, you need to think
about the number alphabetically, not numerically. Alphabetically,
"43" is higher than "1616". To make "43" appear first, it would need
the leading zeros (i.e., "0043" would come before "1616"). Q. Why do negative hours appear on a job billing? There are several ways this can happen, one caused by user error
and the others by system problems. Here's why: each job task on a
job ticket keeps a running total of its unbilled hours. When time
is added to a job, the job task's total unbilled hours increase. When
a job task is billed, its total unbilled hours are copied to the A/R
invoice. When the invoice is printed, the hours billed appear for
each job task. When the invoice is posted, the hours billed for the
job task is subtracted from its total unbilled hours. If a user who's
adding the job billing adjusts the invoice's hours billed -- so that
more hours appear billed on a one task and fewer hours appear billed
on a different task -- the job task's unbilled total hours will be
inaccurate, even though the job's total hours are correct. Or, any
kind of system error during posting time cards/time sheets or A/R
invoices can cause the total hours and hours billed on job tasks to
be inaccurate. In this case, a simple verify/recover job totals fixes
the problem. If this happens, delete the invoice then verify/recover
the one job's costs/billings. Then add the invoice over again. If
the problem with hours billed was caused by system errors, the invoice
will now appear correct. If the problem was caused by user data entry,
you'll need to check the job's cost entries and manually adjust the
hours billed on the job's final invoice. Q. Does C&P support co-op billing? There isn't a specific co-op billing function. But several clients
can be billed for the same job by adding separate invoices, one for
each client. (This works for job billing invoices only) To bill a
different client for a job billing, simply replace the job's client
number with a different one when adding the job billing. The billing
amounts on each separate invoice need to be calculated and entered
manually. For job costing, the job will show up on the job number
listed, and for A/R agings, it'll show up under the various clients
billed. Also, there isn't any way to media bill the same broadcast
or insertion order line to multiple clients. Each order line can be
billed to one client only, and billed only once. This is because the
order line will be marked as billed, regardless of the amount you
bill on the invoice.
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