Setup Agreement Invoicing

Much like an Agreement's ability to schedule dispatches when your customer is due for service, it also has the ability to generate invoices for you when a customer is due to renew their service or make a payment.

Setup Agreement Invoices

The Invoicing ability of an agreement can be setup when the agreement is first created, or it can be edited later to add the invoicing information.  

1. Click on the Agreement List on the icon bar.  If you are creating a new agreement for a customer, click on the Add Agreement button on the toolbar and then select the customer you are creating the agreement for.  If the customer's agreement already exists, use the Search field on the toolbar to locate the agreement that needs to be edited.
   
   
   
   
2. In the Agreement screen, open the Invoice tab.  
   
   
   
   
3. To begin building your invoice, start by selecting the Month to Post. This will determine what month of the year an invoice is generated for this customer containing the items you enter.
4. Under the Month to Post list of options, you'll also have an "On Dispatch" option, which carries the items on the Invoice tab here, to the Parts tab of the dispatch every time a dispatch is generated.
5. Next, you may or may not see a Task field. If you have multiple dispatches that post throughout the year from this agreement, and each has a different Task associated to it, you have the option of associating different billing items to each Task. If you don't see the Task column in the Invoice tab, head to Company → System Setup → Agreements and put a check next to Allow Invoice Amounts Per Task and then click OK. Now you will be able to associate particular invoice items to Tasks that will be posted with the "On Dispatch" option.
   
   
   
   
6. Now select the Item(s) you wish to have added to the generated invoice.  You may either begin typing the item if you know the Billing Code or Part Number, or you may click the drop-down arrow to open the Search screen, which will help you to locate the items you wish to add to the invoice.
   
   
   
   
7. Once an item is selected, the Description and Quantity field will automatically be filled in for you.  If the item has a predefined Price, that will also appear next to the selected item.
   Note: You can open the Edit Description box by clicking the down arrow to the right of the Description field. This brings up the Edit box, which allows you change the Description, as well as use the Insert function to insert the customer’s address, beginning and ending dates, and agreement number.
   
   
   
   
   
8. If you will be billing this customer periodically throughout the year, you can setup the invoice for the first month (or period) and then choose the Fill Invoice Schedule menu at the top of the screen. By selecting how often you wish to bill the customer, ESC will duplicate the invoice for that many periods. For instance, if you setup an invoice for January and then selected Invoice Every Month, then the same billing items will be duplicated for February through December.
   
   
   
   
9. To the far right of each item, you'll notice a Print check box.  If this box is checked, the item is displayed on the printed or emailed invoice.  This can be useful for Reserve items, Parts or notes that you may want on the invoice, but that you don't want to the customer to see.  
   
   
   
   
10. Before you will be able to save this agreement, you will need to fill in the Begin Invoicing On date at the bottom of the Invoice tab. This field only needs to be filled in once and will prevent any invoices from being generated prior to that date. This can be especially useful if a customer just purchased an agreement with you and you want to prevent another invoice from being generated within the same month.
    
    
    
    
11. Be sure to click the Save button on the Agreement screen when you are done adding to the Invoice tab.

Every month, you'll go to Agreements → Post Monthly Invoices in order to post all invoices scheduled for the current month to your Sales module.  When an invoice is posted, the Date Last Invoiced field on the General tab of the Agreement screen will be filled in automatically with the date that invoice was posted.  This will prevent the invoice from being posted a second time if the Post Monthly Invoices feature is run again.

How Do I Post Agreement Invoices? →