1.6.5 Invoicing

Invoices can be created for all type of clients as well as for resellers. 

For clients you can mark which accounts should be invoiced. Also if this option is enabled in the user portal (VUP), a client can request himself whether he wants to receive an invoice. From the VSM click on the menu button next to the Billing solution field.

A dialog will appear with set of options:

Generation – whether an invoice should be generated and if so whether should be sent to client via email

Frequency – weekly, monthly, every 3 months, every 6 months, yearly

Start and end date – period for which invoice is generated, if frequency is chosen only start date applies

Payment due – how many days after the period ends is allowed for payment, after this period the invoices will be shown as overdue

You can make an invoice for any account, regardless of the above settings. These, however, are required for automatic periodic generation or in the case of one time invoices let you narrow the list of accounts when creating invoices manually.

If frequency is selected the invoices will be generated automatically. The Event manager service is responsible for daily checking if there are any invoices to be issued.

Browsing invoices

Existing, already issued, invoices can be browsed from the Billing\Invoices menu. The filters there allow to narrow the result list. Above the filters is the summary area with the total amounts of different values. These information are also shown in each record per each invoice. 

In the table there are also columns Paid and Due date which let you quickly asses who paid already and who is late with payment which is additionally marked in red.

In the Show columns the three clickable icons represent:

• Full invoice – the invoice document with the sellers and buyer details and amounts per item.
• Detailed billing- the detailed list of all made calls and sms
• Summary billing

The invoices are presented in the pdf format directly in the browser from which the file can be downloaded or printed.

Using the checkboxes in the first column you can select particular records only or all visible or filtered records. The bulk options for multiple selection include:

• Delete – removes the records from the database
• Send – sends the invoices to clients emails, taken from the client profile
• Regenerate – recreates the selected invoices
• Change paid – set the payment due to paid
• Export – saves the selected invoices into pdf files on the local hard driver

Export

When you click on Export action a new dialog appears with storing options.

The files’ names can be followed by a suffix, different for each type of the exported files. Also you can define the filename structure by inserting variables pertaining to the date and time of invoice creation. The same set of variables can be used for building the output folders names where the exported invoices will be stored. It is also possible to use the client’s login variable and let the billing system create separate folders for invoices from particular user only. Below is an example of the folder structure.

Creating invoices manually

For the accounts with the frequency set in the Invoice settings panel, the system (Event manager service) will generate invoices automatically. For all others you can generate manually.

In order to create new invoices click on the Generate invoices button. The new panel provides extended search options which allow to narrow the number of accounts in the list.

Next, you have to specify the period for which the accounts should be invoiced.

Invoices can be issues for resellers and clients. There are also some additional checkboxes which let you filter the accounts which fulfil certain criteria:

• Active – list only accounts in active state
• Has invoice data – account has the billing details mandatory fields filled (in Profile tab)
• Made calls - refers to the invoiced period only
• Had payments – refers to the invoiced period only
• Wants invoice – set per account by the admin or by a client (through VUP)
• Wants email – invoice will be sent via email

The records have to have the “has invoice data” column marked. These data are to be filled in the Invoice data in the user profile. Those where this data is missing will be omitted in the invoicing process.

The mandatory fields for invoicing are:

For client accounts:

* First name

* Last name

* Address

* City

* Country

For resellers:

* Full name

* Address

* City

* Country

For UC/PBX account:

* Company name 1

* Address

* City

* Country

From the list select the accounts to be invoiced and click Generate button. A window will appear asking if the detailed billing and summary should be attached to each invoice and if the invoices should be emailed to clients (only to those for whom email address is available).

A progress window will appear.

When ended the summary is displayed. 

Recurring invoices

Clients with defined frequency have invoices generated automatically by the Event manager service. If for some reason you want to generate an invoice manually click on the Generate recurring button in the main Invoices panel. Use the search fields to look for the desired client or clients. The result list will contain only clients with recurring invoicing option enabled.

Settings

The invoicing related settings are in the Billing\Invoices menu.

Templates and Template files

The layout, look of an invoice and the data displayed can be customized by the use of templates and template files:

Templates can be defined for the following account types:

• Clients (excluding UC/PBX)
• UC/PBX
• Resellers

By default each type uses own base template, e.g. for clients (except for UC/PBX) it is BASE_CLIENT template. A template cannot be directly assigned to a client. Only if an account belongs to a reseller then the reseller’s template is used. Another exception is when client account matches a country for which a separate template has been created.

A template allows to define several fields which will be presented on invoices. In the edit view, after clicking on an invoice, the panel is divided on three tabs:

• General
• Document settings
• Email settings

In the General tab you can set the name of the template, choose the account type for which the template is intended and the last element is a drop down list with all available template files. Template files contain information only about the layout and graphic design of the invoice. You can choose a template from the list of predefined templates. More about creating template files…

Use default email settings checkbox is self-explanatory – the template will use default mail configuration defined in Settings\Billing\Invoices\Mail settings. If you want to use a different email settings per template tick off this option.

The Document settings tab comprises different sections with information pertaining seller details, payment information, taxes and document details.

The TAX section allows to define the VAT and PST (used in USA) rates. The values are in percent.

Tax rates and their amounts are shown in relevant columns on the invoice. There are also columns showing the cost of an item in net and gross values.

The option tariffs payments are gross should be on when the rates in tariffs and all the payments are in gross amounts that is vat inclusive. When an invoice is generated the system will have to calculate the net amount for each of the items. The amount which is the VAT amount calculated based on the defined VAT rate is deducted from the item’s cost (which are net amounts).

When the tariffs payments are gross is off the procedure is opposite. The items costs are net amount and to calculate the gross amounts the system will need to assess the VAT amount based on the rate and then add to the net amount.  

The Document details section allow to build strings which will be used on invoices. You can define the name of the file format, invoice number, an item (sold service) and the footer string. In the below example, the invoice number is composed of the variable which is the unique number for the invoice set by the system, followed by slash character  and then current year.

The additional options shown in the last section include:

• Reset invoice number – when enabled the system will reset the invoice numbering for each period. For example if a client has the
• Create detailed billing - tick box determines whether a detailed billing should be created
• Create summary billing - tick box determines whether a summary billing should be created
• Send invoice - if ticked, this tick box sends invoice to the customer's e-mail address

Merging order defines the order in which the billings are put together in the pdf file.

• Reset invoice number box contains the following fields for specifying when an invoice number is reset:
• Reset Invoice number - ticking this tick box enables resetting the invoice number. You can choose the time period after which invoice numbers are reset from the radio buttons below:
• Monthly - reset invoice number after a period of one month
• Yearly - reset invoice number after a period of one year
• To number - reset invoice number after a certain invoice number has been reached. This can be used, for example, when you are creating weekly invoices. You could set the number to the number of weeks in the year – 52. If a particular number is set, the next generated invoice will reset it's number to the To number field incremented with 1.

Country templates

Country templates give us a possibility to assign a different template to different countries and/or states. When an invoice is being created for a client the system checks the client profile and based on the defined country and state the appropriate template is used.

For example if you want to use a different template for clients from New Zealand first create the template in the Templates menu and then go to Country templates, add new template, choose New Zealand from the list of all countries and assign the desired template.

State field should be filled manually and is compared with the State value from the client's Profile. The State field is not available for resellers.

Template type - A country template can be assigned to one of the following types: 

• Client, 
• UC/PBX client
• Reseller I

Mail settings

This menu contains default configuration of the SMTP account used for sending invoices. An email subject and body can include a custom text with the variables which are available after clicking the extended menu button next to relevant fields.

Custom data fields

The Custom fields menu allows to define additional fields for the end-user's Profile. These fields will be visible both in the VSM (under the client account profile tab) and the client portal (VUP).

To create new custom field you have to go to Settings\Billing\Invoices\Custom fields menu.

There are several properties for each field:

• Name - name of the variable representing added custom field;
• Label – depiction that will be visible in the VUP and VSM
• Read only - ticking this check-box will forbid clients from changing the field’s value
• Hidden - the field will not be visible to the clients
• Type - the field variable type:
  • TextBox - you can input any character, limited only by the max length parameter
  • Drop down list - you need to define possible choice elements by adding items in the option fields below
  • Numeric - list showing numeric values' range defined by first and last element (good example for using this type is "date of birth": always 1-31 value or "requested number of channels": 1-x );

Depending on the custom field type selected, different options will be available in the box below this field.

After providing all relevant data the field can be added to the Custom fields list by pressing the Add button.

Template files (TODO)