Our intention when it comes to Invoicing is to keep things clear and straightforward for our clients. Accounting is a very complex area of business, and Freshbooks and Xero are incredible products designed to cover all your accounting needs. So we clearly did not need to reinvent the wheel. We also want to keep the relationship boundaries between our services well defined and uncomplicated for our clients to follow.
So the process of Invoicing Jobs in GeoOp is essentially very simple. Purely so we can put some wider details in context, below is an example 'step-by-step' workflow for creating an invoice. We'll then have a look at the example stages and provide more detail on each.
- Quote: Our mobile worker makes an initial site visit, creating quote items on their mobile device and getting quote approval from the client.
- Actuals: A 2nd visit is made for the work to be done - Actuals are recorded against the quoted items by our mobile worker. Variations are noted and approved by the client.
- Job complete: Our mobile worker updates the Job Status to 'Completed: To Invoice'.
- GeoOp invoice run: The office include the Job in the next scheduled invoice run. The data is 'pushed' to Xero.
- Xero Invoicing: The invoices are approved and sent to the client from Xero.
This Video Covers using the Invoicing page to process invoices in bulk
1. Quote
If your business uses Quoting, and the feature is enabled, your mobile worker may go to the Job and add quoted items onto the Job charges. These items, compromising labour or parts, can be selected as Billable when added to the Job.
If you do not use the Quoting feature, items at this point will be added as Actuals. For further details see Quoting.
2. Actuals
The Job is done. Parts that had been quoted previously matched what was used, however extra hours were required by our mobile worker to complete the work. This revised Actual total is recorded against the original quoted item, and selected as Billable. The quoted item it was recorded against is now deselected from being Billable. A signature is taken from the client approving this change to the Billable amount. For further details see Adding Time & Parts to Jobs.
The correct item will now go to invoice later, with an accurate recording of quote vs actual stored in GeoOp for Job costing purposes.
3. Job complete
To finish on this job the mobile worker will change the Job Status to the relevant completed option. Some businesses choose to create a status specifically titled ‘Complete: To Invoice’. In real time, back in the office an administrator can see this Job is completed and is happy they’ve got all the info & approvals they need to invoice the job.
Tip: At any point during the progress of a Job, you can view item information (Parts and Labour) on the Job record. Go to your Job list, click on the relevant Job line to view its details. Click the Parts & Labour tab. You can now view all items, what is due for invoice (represented by the editable tick boxes on the right of each item), profit/margin and quote/actual figures for the Job.
Note: The profit margin is the gross profit margin. This is calculated as ((revenue - cost) / revenue) * 100.
Tip: From here you can also invoice a Job directly – an invoice run would be created for the single Job, and the info would be passed through to Xero as per the below process.
4. GeoOp invoice run
Full invoicing functions, including creating an invoice run, are accessed via the Invoicing screen. Go to Jobs > Invoicing.
The Invoice tab lists all Jobs, with Labour and Part items marked Billable, that have not yet been sent to your invoicing/accounting system. The view gives us each Job by item so you can choose to invoice or even part-invoice anything you want. Above the Job items list, you have familiar search and filter options you can use to find specific Jobs. To the right of this you can even choose how you want to invoice, by Job or Client. So for example we could invoice for multiple jobs to 1 client on a single invoice.
Tip: The XL Report button from this screen wil create a CSV file of all line items currently in this screen (taking into account any search or filters you have applied). The same named button can also be used from the Invoice Runs tab on Job data already sent for invoicing.
Tip: Tick the "Include Unscheduled Jobs" to also show Jobs that have no Visits.
Select or deselect any Jobs or line items you wish to invoice. When you are ready, click the Create Run button on the top-right of your Invoicing panel.
Tip: Data entered in the GeoOp order field will show up in Freshbooks or Xero as the invoice reference.
Tip: When sending an invoice run to Xero, the GeoOp Job Reference becomes the invoice number.
5. Xero Invoicing
For example, we'll assume that we have an Integration with accountancy program Xero. Clicking Create Run has now sent the selected data through to Xero. This process takes a few seconds, but when done the screen changes to the Invoice Runs tab. This shows us that it’s been sucessfully sent. Xero will also return a PDF of the invoice, that will stay as a Notes item on the particular Job.
Once you have sent Job items to an invoice run they will no longer show on this page. Instead you can see what you have sent using the Invoice Run tab on this page. If you are expecting to see something on this page and it isn't showing, try extending the date range filter below to show items with a future date.
Note: For Xero users, make sure you look at draft invoices in Xero as this is where GeoOp invoices will appear (unless you have ticked the 'Approve Invoices' box on your GeoOp Invoicing screen prior to sending them to Xero).
Security
From the Invoice Run tab you can easily undo an invoice run, in case you've made a mistake.
When you’ve invoiced a Job, if you view the job on a mobile device the invoiced line items will show as invoiced & be locked against further amendments. This also works for part-invoicing.
Marking a Job as 'Invoiced'
Jobs can be marked as 'invoiced' or anything else that suits your business using GeoOp’s custom Job Status feature.
Furthermore, a Job's items (Time & Parts) are identified as being invoiced in the Parts & Labour tab in the Edit Job screen. The right-hand column is called 'Billable'. An editable tick box allows you to select/deselect an item for invoicing, and an uneditable tick indicates an item has already been invoiced.
Once items have been invoiced they will not be editable on mobile platforms. However, invoiced items can be amended via the website, then invoicing adjustments made.
Invoice numbering
For all accounting integrations, the GeoOp Job Reference will become the invoice number (unless . This Reference is auto-generated upon creation of a new Job (though editable after the Job is saved, if required). To enable you to create Job References as you wish, you can set your chosen increments within a defined structure.
Go to Settings > Company Account, then click the Extra Features side-tab.
Under 'Reference Increment', you can define values for both:
- Prefix: This will be a fixed (text or numerical) reference, that if used will be separated by a / from the second part of your reference. If this field is left blank, no / will display.
- Number: This will be your initial incrementing number. This must be a whole number (eg 123) and not a string (eg 000123).
Note: The number field is required, and cannot be left blank.
Currency settings
In GeoOp there are no settings for currency as they are not required. GeoOp lets you effortlessly add charges to your jobs but we leave the currency and invoicing to your accounting system. GeoOp can output CSV data for importing into your accounting system or if you have a Xero or Freshbooks Integration then you can push your data to them with the click of a mouse.
Producing Invoices in mobile devices
You can now turn Jobs straight into Invoices from mobile devices using your Freshbooks or Xero account. Please see these new YouTube videos for details on how to do this on the iPad:
Xero - click here
Freshbooks - click here
The ability to invoice from iPhone and Android is not currently available. Future details on the possible feature will be published here.
Customising Invoices
When synced with Xero or Freshbooks, the invoices are generated in that software. Therefore, any customisation needs to be done in Xero or Freshbooks. You do however, have some choices in what goes into the invoices. These options can be found by going to Settings > Company Account > Invoicing Options. The options you have are:
- Invoice Due Date
- Add Job Description to Invoice
- Add Job Address to Invoice
- Add Job Date to Invoice
- Add Job TItle to Invoice
- Use Automatic Xero Numbers
Comments
0 comments
Please sign in to leave a comment.