Bill a deposit or fee stage

Techstyles has no separate deposit or stage billing. You raise each one as an ordinary invoice with one line, and keep track of what's been billed yourself. A payment schedule on a proposal isn't saved, and invoices aren't linked to project phases.

Before you start

• You need permission to edit finance. Admins have it by default.
• The project must have a client with an email address.
• Check the project's FF&E rate. If the project has one, the FF&E fee is added to every new invoice, including a deposit. To bill without it, open the project's Settings > Financial and clear FF&E before you create the invoice. Put it back afterwards. An invoice keeps the rate it was created with, so this doesn't change invoices you've already raised.
• Check whether prices include VAT. With Product prices include VAT on, VAT is taken out of the price you enter, so £1,000 means £1,000 in total. With it off, VAT is added on top.

Steps

1. Go to Finance and click New invoice.
2. Under Details, choose the Project. Billed to fills in with the client.
3. Set the Issue date and Due date.
4. Under Line items, enter a Description such as "Deposit: 30% of design fee", Qty 1 and the amount as the Unit price.
5. Check the Summary, then click Save draft.
6. On Finance, click ⋯ on its row and choose Send to Client. See Email an invoice to your client.

What happens next

• Your client gets the invoice by email with the PDF attached.
• It won't appear in their portal's Finances, because it has no schedule items on it. Only invoices with schedule items reach the portal.
• When they pay, record the payment.

When you bill the balance

Techstyles doesn't take a deposit off a later invoice for you, and a line can't have a price below 0. Work out what's left, bill that as the line's amount, and say so in the description, for example "Balance of design fee, after deposit INV-071". To reduce an invoice you've already sent, raise a credit note.