Creating Regular and Master Invoices
To create new regular or master invoices, either go to Billing > Invoices, and click + Create New Invoice, or use the quick menu at the top of the page and click on Add Invoice. This will bring you to the Create Invoice search page, where you can search for open line items, and generate new invoices for those items. To access this page, you need the User Permission ‘Create Invoices’.
You can use the various filters, i.e. Company, Order #, Order Details, Ticket Details, along with many other choices, to find the items that need to be billed.
Once you’ve entered information in the desired filters, click Search to view the open line items that fit your search criteria. The open line items are broken out into different tables for Ad Items, Service Items, and Digital Media Items. Each table shows information about each line item.
Use the check-boxes on the right side of the table to select each line item you wish to create an invoice for. Once your line items are selected, you have two options. At the bottom of the page, you can either mark the selected items as externally invoiced or create new internal invoices.
Externally Invoice Selected Items: Marking items as externally invoiced means that the item will be recorded as invoiced, but the invoice is not contained in the system. For instance, maybe you have a paper copy, or the invoice was recorded in your previous software so you do not have the PDF in the system. Using this action will prompt a popup where you should enter the external invoice number/label.
Invoice Selected Items: Using this action, rather than the external invoice action, will bring you through the next steps of the invoice creation process, and at the end you will have either a regular or master invoice(s) for the selected items.
If you are invoicing the selected items, you will be brought to step 2 of the invoice creation process. This second step allows you to choose which invoice template to use, as well as set the invoice date and due date.
If invoicing multiple line items, they may or may not be grouped together or separated. This is somewhat dependent on your system configurations, such as if your team creates master invoices by default, or if you choose to group invoices by order. You will most likely see an option to create a master invoice or not.
You should see an additional field called ‘Tax Basis’ if you have the System Configuration Set Tax Basis on Line Item set to yes. This field allows you to choose how much of the item is taxable. For instance, if you have a service worth $100 but only half of that should be taxed, you would enter $50 in the Tax Basis field. The values initially set in these fields are based on the Tax Basis entered when creating the order but can be edited here if needed.
Once you’ve entered all the necessary information on step 2, you can move on to the next step of the invoicing process, which allows you to preview your invoices before they are actually generated. Click the ‘Preview Invoice’ button on this page to view your invoices and make sure there are no mistakes before the invoice is actually created. You can always navigate back and make changes if something looks wrong on this step.
If your previews look good, click Create Invoices. This step is what actually generates the invoices. This last step shows your new invoice numbers as well as some information about each invoice. It also allows you to take certain actions on each invoice including making payments, emailing and printing the invoices, and splitting the invoices.
These are the basic instructions on how to create regular and master invoices. For more information about specific settings that can help with your invoicing process, as well as how to split invoices, continue reading the sections below.
To create regular or master invoices with a pre-selected invoice template, users can filter their Create Invoice Search Page by checking the Show Only Orders with Assigned Invoice Template search option. When the invoices are created, the invoice template will be automatically selected based on the line item’s contract template. Before using this feature, you should review the following site settings.
In order to use this feature, your system must have the following set up.
If your customers don’t want to get an invoice that includes line items for multiple orders, you can choose to group your invoices by order id.
By default, you can create invoices that include line items for multiple orders. For example, I am creating invoices for all the open invoices for an advertiser. Some of the line items are going to be billed to an agency. When I click on invoice selected items, the system will group the line items based on the billing company.
But, if I want to make sure to invoice customers for each order, I can enable the group invoice configuration, and the system will prevent me from mixing orders on an invoice. I can still use master invoices, but I can’t have two orders on the same invoice. If I invoice the same selected items as above with the configuration enabled, I will see all of my invoices are grouped by order, not just by billing company.
You should take time to review your Contract Templates. Navigate to Settings > Templates > Contracts and either add a new template, or edit an existing template. When on the template edit page, click the Settings icon. This will prompt a pop-up, where you can associate an Invoice Template with your Contract Template. Select the desired Invoice Template from the Invoice Template drop-down, and click Save. Once you have an Invoice Template associated with your Contract Template, any orders created with that Contract Template will show up when searching for billable line items and the ‘Show Only Orders with Assigned Invoice Template’ box is checked.
When your site is set up to use the ‘Show Only Orders with Assigned Invoice Template’ search option, you can begin creating invoices with pre-selected invoice templates.
When you create an order, the order will either have an Invoice Template assigned or not, depending on the Contract Template you used. After the order has been created and approved, you can check which Contract Template is assigned to the order by navigating to a Company’s Orders tab, and clicking the Edit Order icon. From the Edit Order pop-up, you will be able to see which Contract Template is currently selected.
To create your invoices, go to the Create Invoices Search Page by either clicking the + icon on the top menu and choosing Add Invoice, or by selecting Billing > Invoices on the left menu and clicking Create New Invoice.
Fill out any of the other search fields you would like, and make sure to check the ‘Show Only Orders with Assigned Invoice Template’ box. When you run the search, only line items on contracts with an invoice template assigned will be shown.
Important
Even if your site is set up to use this feature, it does not always have to be used. If you do not have the Show Only Orders with Assigned Invoice Template box checked, then you can create your invoices without the invoice template being pre-selected. If you don't see line items that you expected to see, make sure the contact template has an assigned invoice template.
Click Invoice Selected Line Items. This will bring you to the second step of the Invoice Creation process. On this page, users will still be able to choose an Invoice Date and an Invoice Due Date, but will not have the option to select an Invoice Template. On this page, there will be an additional row of information that displays the name of the pre-selected Invoice Template.
You can continue with the rest of the Invoice Creation process like normal to preview and create your invoices.
Updated 3/09/2023
Split Invoices
After you create an invoice, you can split the invoice into new invoices. You can split invoices by percentage or amount. When invoices are split, you can assign them to other companies in the system. You can’t split all invoices.
You can only split invoices if they are regular invoices with no payments and have never been split. If you do split an invoice, any pre-payment discounts will be removed.
Note
You can split an invoice that is only barter or an invoice that has both cash and barter. When you split an invoice with both cash and barter, the barter amount will be included in the split.
To split an invoice, go to Billing > Invoices, search and click on the ellipsis to choose the split action. If you don’t see the icon it means the invoice can’t be split.
You will see a split pop-up where you can add multiple splits to the invoice. Each split can be assigned to a different company for billing. Make sure all your splits equal 100% of the original invoice value. You can also choose an offset period. The offset period will update the new invoices invoice dates by the offset period.
The offset period will update the new invoices invoice dates by the offset period. For example, if the original invoice had a date of 1/15/2019 and you created 4 splits and an offset period of a month, the new invoices would have dates of 2/15/2019, 3/15/2019, and 4/15/2019.
You can bulk split invoices, but you will lose the ability to assign the invoices to different companies. To do a bulk split, click on the checkbox to the left of the invoices. After you select some invoices, you can click on the split selected action.
Set up the splits you want to apply to every selected invoice and select an offset period. The system will split every eligible invoice; some of the selected invoices may not be splittable.
After you made all your splits, you will see (all splits) list under any invoice you split or invoice created from a split. Click on all splits to see PDFs of every invoice from the split.