Invoice Categories

[Sam]

Right now, if you manually add an invoice, there's no way to assign a category to it. If you're hooking into invoice payments, it's really tough (impossible?) for an external system to quantify what the invoice is for.

 

E.g. You may invoice a client for 2 hours of work at 60/hour. You may invoice a client for a cash deposit. You may invoice a flat fee for a particular niche service which is impractical to create a product/service for.

 

Hope this makes sense,

Sam

[Michael]

Why on earth would you want a category for an invoice? 

 

Just make an invoice for 2 hours @ 60.00 and put a flat fee on another row?

[Sam]

?

Because some of us hook our invoices into other systems, which blesta excels at. I give my salespeople varying commission depending on whether the service was hourly or flat rate.

Why wouldn't I want a way to differentiate?

[Blesta Addons]

Really i don't understand adding categories to invoices ?

 

if i well understand your request , you can do that , but it need some customization and request directly to database .

 

invoice , has status field , you can use this field to store your catagory . that is highly not recommanded and i never tell you how, but if you are a expertise user , you have now the road to go with it .

[Daniel B]

I don't think the invoice itself is what should be categorized...this should be done based off the line items themselves in my opinion.  Your line items should already categorize what the item being billed is for right?

[Max]

Would personally not write out an invoice for things like cash deposits. If you work with prepaid balances, using account statements may be more proper. 

But can think of other situations where categorizing invoice line items could be useful.

 

Why on earth would you want a category for an invoice? 

 

If you sell other stuff than just hosting, there may be accounting requirements that requires categorizing.

E.g. here we need to report our turnover for "goods exported to other EU countries" and "services sold to customers in other EU countries" separately. So need to know if the line item is a good or a service.

[Sam]

Would personally not write out an invoice for things like cash deposits. If you work with prepaid balances, using account statements may be more proper.

But can think of other situations where categorizing invoice line items could be useful.

If you sell other stuff than just hosting, there may be accounting requirements that requires categorizing.

E.g. here we need to report our turnover for "goods exported to other EU countries" and "services sold to customers in other EU countries" separately. So need to know if the line item is a good or a service.

But this is the only way that I can get a receipt for the customer. That's all they're really after. Is there a better way?

[Max]

But this is the only way that I can get a receipt for the customer.

 

Wouldn't it be better to open a feature request for a receipt then?

 

 

E.g. the domain registrar we outsource our international domain registrations to, uses a prepayment system as well, and sends:

 

• an e-mail notification when an incoming payment is received. Listing amount received and how it is applied to our account. (in our case the e-mail also mentions the conversion rate, as we send money by bank transfer in EUR, and they convert it to USD at the official ECB rate for us, avoiding bank commission)
• once a month: a normal VAT invoice for services actually rendered.
• once a month: an account statement listing payments and invoice(s) that month, and the remaining balance left.

 

An invoice and an account statement are different documents, with different tax implications (at least when using accrual accounting)

[Paul]

You could use the private notes field for internal tracking of things.

[Sam]

Wouldn't it be better to open a feature request for a receipt then?

E.g. the domain registrar we outsource our international domain registrations to, uses a prepayment system as well, and sends:

• an e-mail notification when an incoming payment is received. Listing amount received and how it is applied to our account. (in our case the e-mail also mentions the conversion rate, as we send money by bank transfer in EUR, and they convert it to USD at the official ECB rate for us, avoiding bank commission)
• once a month: a normal VAT invoice for services actually rendered.
• once a month: an account statement listing payments and invoice(s) that month, and the remaining balance left.

An invoice and an account statement are different documents, with different tax implications (at least when using accrual accounting)

Why is creating an invoice for a deposit considered so taboo here? A deposit is a cash payment. It can and should be invoived

[Max]

Why is creating an invoice for a deposit considered so taboo here? A deposit is a cash payment. It can and should be invoived

 

Problem is that the moment you write out an invoice, you are indicating that you performed a service to the customer. This also has the consequence that you owe the government tax over the amount on the invoice.

It is generally better to postpone tax liability, until the moment you actually do provide the service.

 

What if the customer makes a prepayment for $ 1000 today (2014), you write an invoice for $ 1000, but the customer does not spent the balance straight away, but waits until 2015 to order a long list of domains?

Let's disregard sales tax for simplicity, and only look at income/corporation tax.

$ 1000 turnover - $ 0 costs = $ 1000 profit in 2014 to pay income tax over.

But you'll end up with a lot less than $ 1000 after you paid for the domains the customer will order in 2015...

 

Rather pay nothing in 2014 yet, and the amount actually earned in 2015.

[Sam]

Problem is that the moment you write out an invoice, you are indicating that you performed a service to the customer. This also has the consequence that you owe the government tax over the amount on the invoice.

It is generally better to postpone tax liability, until the moment you actually do provide the service.

What if the customer makes a prepayment for $ 1000 today (2014), you write an invoice for $ 1000, but the customer does not spent the balance straight away, but waits until 2015 to order a long list of domains?

Let's disregard sales tax for simplicity, and only look at income/corporation tax.

$ 1000 turnover - $ 0 costs = $ 1000 profit in 2014 to pay income tax over.

But you'll end up with a lot less than $ 1000 after you paid for the domains the customer will order in 2015...

Rather pay nothing in 2014 yet, and the amount actually earned in 2015.

We only take deposits for services (eg large design or seo jobs), not products. Per my SoW agreement, deposits are non refundable after we've started work, and count as income for that year. Apples and oranges, I guess. I would never take a deposit for random things or fixed rate packages or services

[Max]

We only take deposits for services (eg large design or seo jobs), not products. Per my SoW agreement, deposits are non refundable after we've started work, and count as income for that year. Apples and oranges, I guess. I would never take a deposit for random things or fixed rate packages or services

 

Ah, I misunderstood.

I thought that with "cash deposits" you meant you used a prepaid "pay-as-go" billing scheme, where customers have to add funds first, and every order is deducted from the balance.

 

Yes, sending an invoice for the non-refundable retainer fee first, and a second final invoice that has two line items: one for the entire amount, and a negative one that deducts the retainer, is common.