Engagement Billing Tab

Projector Web

You can now maintain billing through Projector Web.

The billing tab determines how this engagement should be invoiced and what information should be included in new invoices. By default it uses values inherited from the client. You can override these values on a per engagement basis. As a general rule, it is better to make changes at the client level than at the engagement level. You should only be overriding these settings if an engagement has a unique difference for this client.

The Billing tab is reached by opening an engagement or project and selecting the Engagement Tab | Billing subtab.

Permissions and Settings

Only billable engagement types allow access to this tab. To make changes you must have one of the following:

Billing Sections

Specify the engagement's billing address, invoice information, how it should be invoiced, and optionally invoice email information. The default values in these fields are determined by the client on the engagement. You can change the defaults for new engagements by making changes in the Client Editor. To enter your own values untick the inherit checkbox..

Billing Address

When an invoice is created, this is the address that is used.

Invoice Information

This information will be populated to the Engagement Billing Tab when new engagements are created for this client. The information from that tab will in turn be used to pre-populate the invoice editor when creating new invoices.

FieldDescription

Billing Instructions

Specific billing instructions for this client. The person that prepares the client's invoice will see these instructions, but the client will not.

Client Message

An optional message to be displayed on the client's invoice. This looks like an ordinary text box but can accept text in Rich Text Format (RTF). If you copy text from any "Rich Text Editor" e.g. Wordpad and paste it in the text box, the text will retain its formatting (bold, color, paragraphs, etc)

Payment Terms

Payment Terms define when payment of client invoices are due. They appear on printed invoices and in accounts receivables transactions sent to an accounting system. They dictate the time period in which an invoice must be paid and whether the organization is offering a monetary incentive for early payment. Choose from any of the options in this drop-down menu, or create additional options on the Payment Terms admin form.

Invoice Template

The layout that will be used for this client's invoices. For example, you can select a template that shows billed time broken down by who submitted it or by which project it was submitted to. See Invoice Template Examples to view invoice screenshots.

Billing Cycle

When creating new invoices, you can find invoices that need to be created based on the billing cycle. Choose from monthly, semi-monthly, bi-weekly, weekly and current.

Invoice for Time

Bill the client on either an hourly or daily basis. This option controls the availability of the Adjust for Daily Billing time card adjustment. It also affects the display of legacy templates to show days instead of hours in columns. This option does not apply when you have chosen one of our new templates. Because these new templates are editable, the expectation is that you will change the template to match your time display criteria.

PO Number

New invoices for this client will automatically populate with the specified PO Number

Invoicing Culture

Cultures govern how numbers are displayed (currency symbol, periods, commas, etc) on invoices. This drop-down menu will list only those cultures that are appropriate based upon the engagement's currency. For example, if the engagement's currency is Canadian dollars, you will have two options for culture: English (Canada) and French (Canada). For some currencies, there are no options for culture. In these cases, this option is disabled.

 

Create Invoices For

When creating an invoice, Projector finds all milestones, time cards, and cost cards for the client. You then have a choice on how you want to group these three billable types together. The choices are outlined in the table below. When thinking about your invoicing strategy, it is useful to think about invoices in terms of engagements. An engagement represents a contract and is really the glue that binds all these choices together.

FieldDescription

Time and cost together/separately

Do you want to group time cards, cost cards, and milestones together on the same invoice? Some clients pay labor invoices more quickly than expense invoices or vice-versa. This is often done when one or the other requires more scrutiny. Billing for time/expenses/milestones separately may help your organization get paid faster.

This setting only affects invoice creation. You can always go into an invoice after it is created and join time/cost/milestones together as you wish.

The name here is misleading as it also covers milestones.

Client*

Create an invoice for all engagements under this client. If there were five engagements then all billable items would be brought onto a single invoice.

PO Number*

Create an invoice for all engagements with matching Engagement Billing Tab. If you have three engagements with the same PO number, all billable items are brought onto a single invoice for all three.

Engagement

Create a separate invoice for each engagement. Individual engagements have all billable items on a single invoice.

Project

Create a separate invoice for each individual project. If you are using milestones with this selection, it is a good idea to make sure that milestone is associated with a project. If the milestone is not associated with a project, we'll create a separate invoice for it at the engagement level instead.

  • Currency - we cannot group engagements that have different currencies because multi-currency on a single invoice would not make much sense. How would you combine euros and dollars on a single invoice?
  • Cost Center - we group across cost centers because the integration sends over a single AR transaction to your accounting system. As cost centers can have different AR mappings we do not group in this case.
  • Content - both engagements must be invoicing the same things. For example, time + cost together. You can't have one invoicing time alone and the other invoicing time + cost.
  • Client - engagements must be for the same client. May arise if you are using sub-clients.
  • Invoicing Culture (unusual) - invoicing culture determines how an invoice should be displayed given the currency it is in. For example, many countries use the Euro. However, each country displays dates and numbers in a different way. If one engagement is set to display numbers as #,###.## and another as #.###.## - then we would not know how to display numbers properly.
  • Service Contract - service period contracts create an invoice for their date range only


Include receipts when creating PDF invoicesShould receipts be printed on invoices by default?
Apply available balance to invoice amount upon invoice creationIf a prepayment balance exists, automatically apply as much of the balance as possible to the current invoice.

 

Tax Types

Tax types follow an hierarchy in Projector. By default, taxes are defined at the company level. However, you may have some clients where you need to collect taxes just for them. For example, when levying a local sales tax. Here is where you can specify the tax. The tax specified here can be overridden on an invoice-by-invoice basis from the invoice editor. To edit your available tax types, see the Tax Type Editor.

Projector only allows up to three tax types.

Tax
Description
Tax Type 1 
Tax Type 2 
Tax Type 3 

 

Email Settings

When invoices for this client are issued, have them emailed also. See the Invoice Editor MP - Distribution Tab for screenshots and more information.

FieldDescription

E-mail and

Tick the checkbox to enable emails. Then specify the radio button for how you would like the invoice attached.

  • Upload invoice to project workspaces - Your client can log into the employee portal workspace to download a copy of the invoice. It is common to store past invoices here too.
  • Include invoice as attacment - A PDF of the invoice is attached to the email. Attachments are limited to 15mb
  • Embed invoice as HTML in e-mail -  The invoice is converted to HTML and is included as part of your email

Send e-mails from

Search for a user in your installation who emails will be sent from. Only registered emails will work. See How do I email my invoices? for more information on registering emails.

Send e-mails to

Specify who should receive your emails by adding users to the To, CC, and BCC fields.

Using e-mail template

The email template should correspond to the radio button you chose under the E-mail and section. For example, if you chose to include the invoice as an attachment, your email might read, "Please find your invoice attached to this email."