Invoicing and Xero
How invoices, payments, credit notes and top-ups work in Techstyles, and how they stay in step with Xero.
Finance is where your studio bills clients and keeps track of what it has been paid. Every invoice and purchase order belongs to a project, and if you connect Xero, each one is copied to Xero as you work.
Who can use Finance
- Admins can do everything: create, send, record payments, void, delete, raise credit notes and top-ups.
- Managers can see Finance but not change it, unless an admin gives them more in Settings > Roles & permissions.
- Members don't see Finance.
The life of an invoice
- Draft. You create it, from scratch or from purchase orders. A draft can be edited freely or deleted.
- Sent. It has been issued to the client. From now on what it bills is locked, the same rule Xero follows.
- Part paid and Paid. You record payments against it (or they arrive from Xero), and the status follows the money.
- Void, if it was issued in error and nothing has been paid.
When the amount needs to change after the client has the invoice, you don't edit it. You raise a separate document:
- a credit note to take money off, or
- a top-up invoice to bill extra quantities.
Two ways to "send"
- Send invoice on the Create invoice page records the invoice as Sent. It does not email anyone.
- Send to Client in the invoice's ⋯ menu on Finance emails the invoice, with its PDF, to the client.
Read Send invoice or Send to Client before you issue your first invoice.
Xero
Connecting Xero is optional. Once it is connected:
- each invoice and purchase order is sent to Xero when you save it;
- payments, voids, credit notes and refunds you record here are recorded in Xero first;
- payments and credit notes recorded in Xero come back to Techstyles.
The Sync column on Finance tells you where each document stands.
Good to know
- There is no expenses feature. Supplier costs are tracked through purchase orders.
- Invoice numbers are set by Techstyles (for example INV-071). There is no setting for a prefix or a starting number.
- Every change to an invoice or purchase order is kept in its History.
- Studio-wide rates and bank details are in Set your finance defaults and Add the bank details your invoices show.
- For totals over a period, see Read the Finance report and Read the Revenue & P&L report.