Synergist's invoicing is built to match however you actually bill clients. Bill on time and materials, follow the original quote, part-bill as a job progresses, or combine several phases (even several jobs) onto one invoice. All of it starts the same way: as a draft.
This article walks through how to create a draft invoice and what each tab on it does.
Where invoices are created
Invoices and drafts have their own table in the left-hand navigation panel, but this is a view only. You can filter and check on invoices here, you just can't create one from this screen.
Drafts are created from one of three places:
- Client level: needed if you want to invoice across multiple jobs on one invoice.
- Job level: the most common starting point, covered in this article.
- Phase level: works the same way as job level, just scoped to one phase.
Once an invoice is made real, its key financial data (dates, values, VAT rates) can no longer be edited. Only free text fields, such as address or line descriptions, stay editable.
Starting a new invoice
- Open the job.
- Go to the Invoices tab. This shows every real and draft invoice on the job, including credit notes and write offs.
- Select New Invoice.
The Invoices tab defaults to a rolled-up view but can be expanded to show phase-level detail. The default VAT rate shown is pulled from the client record, and can be changed from the drop-down if needed.
New Invoice takes you to the Details tab of a fresh draft. Every invoice shares the same set of tabs, though your system setup may show or hide certain fields.
Deciding if this is a final invoice
Before doing anything else, decide whether this invoice is final. Tick the Final box if so. It cannot be changed once the draft is made real.
Marking an invoice as final tells Synergist no more billing is expected, and closes the job or phase. Find out more about what happens when you close a job and how to reopen one in Closing a Job.
The Details tab
This is what your client will actually see when the invoice is printed or sent as a PDF. The lines here are generated automatically based on your choice on the Content tab, but you can add, edit, delete, reorder and style them freely while the invoice is still in draft.
Each line includes:
- A description, with optional quantity and unit price.
- The VAT code, VAT amount and gross total.
- A nominal code column, if enabled on your system.
Lines can be dragged into a new order, and each has its own line detail box for extra text.
The Content tab
This is where you choose how the invoice builds itself. Your system has a default build type set at company or client level, but you can override it here while the invoice is still in draft.
Build types
- None: no lines are added automatically. You build the invoice manually, one line at a time or several at once.
- Job or phase description: inserts the job or phase description (or comments) as a single line, valued at the current net to invoice.
- Quote: builds the invoice from the saved job or phase quote.
- Line build: used mainly for multi-job invoicing. Builds one line per job or phase using details like job number, description and order number, alongside the net to invoice value.
- Actual costs: builds lines from costs posted to the job. How detailed this is depends on the settings under Time, materials & purchases, and which costs have been ticked off.
- Manual: for recording an invoice that already exists outside Synergist, for example when migrating live jobs onto the system. No lines are created and nothing is sent to your accounts system.
Any build type can be hidden at company or client level if you don't use it.
A discount can also be applied here, along with the invoice's payment terms. Terms default from the client record but can be changed at any point, even after the invoice is real.
The Jobs/Phases invoiced tab
This confirms which job or phase the invoice covers. Synergist usually completes this for you automatically:
- Invoicing from a job header selects all phases not yet final invoiced.
- Invoicing from a phase header selects just that phase, with no others available.
If you only want to invoice some phases, remove the whole job from the selection first, then pick the specific phases you need. Final invoiced phases are hidden by default, but there's a control to include them if required. You can also filter the available list by phase type, or restrict it to completed phases only.
The Allocated costs tab
This tells Synergist which costs this invoice is covering, which is what your profit calculation is actually based on: billed value less the cost of the sale.
Most users leave this to auto tick-off, set in company parameters, which ticks off all current costs automatically. Switch to manual if you're invoicing for specific costs only, such as artwork, or part-invoicing costs up to a set date.
- Switch between time, materials and purchases using the buttons at the top.
- Click a cost to tick or untick it.
- Costs can be ticked off as billed or written off. Both remove the cost from your WIP (work in progress) report as at the invoice date, but a written-off cost won't appear in the invoice total if you're using the actual costs build type.
You can print an invoice backing sheet from this tab, if one is set up on your system.
The Address tab
This defaults to your client's address, but three overrides are available:
- Alternative invoicing addresses: set up specific client contacts as invoicing addresses and select from them.
- A different client: search and select another client to invoice entirely. Revenue still counts against the original job, but the invoice posts to the selected client in your accounts system.
- A delivery address: shown on the invoice as a secondary address, if your invoice layout supports it.
An orange warning triangle appears if any VAT code on the invoice doesn't match the default for the selected invoice-to organisation. Click it to update every line to the correct default.
The Financial and Notes tabs
The Financial tab shows a summary of gross and net profit, with a calculator to test adjustments before committing to them.
The Notes tab has two boxes: invoice comments, visible to the client if added to your invoice layout, and internal comments, for your own records only.
Allocating a multi-phase invoice
If your invoice covers two or more phases, Synergist needs to know how to split it across them. This happens on the Phase allocations tab.
- Manually: select a phase and enter the value to allocate. All allocations must add up to the invoice total before the draft can be made real.
- Automatically: click the auto button and choose a basis for the split, such as estimated cost, actual cost, quote or tickoff. Synergist calculates each phase's share of that total, then applies the same percentage to the invoice value.
For example, a £1,000 invoice split by quoted value across three phases quoted at £200, £400 and £400 would allocate £200, £400 and £400 respectively.
If your draft is built from a billing plan, billing plan becomes the only available auto-allocation method. If you'd rather not think about this on every invoice, set a default auto-allocate method in company settings and it will apply automatically.
The Accounts analysis tab
This only appears if your system separates sales analysis from the invoice line detail, for example when one invoice line needs to split across several nominal codes. You can build this manually, or click auto to generate it from estimated or actual recommended charge, using the sales nominal code set against each charge code, material and supply type.
Making a draft invoice real
Once you're happy with the draft, it can be made real. If draft approval is switched on for your organisation, it needs to move through ready for approval and approved first, usually handled by different users set up for each stage in their user record.
Making an invoice real is the final, unavoidable step, and it's irreversible. After this point, only text fields can be edited. Financial detail is locked for good.
Tips
- Decide on Final before you build the invoice, not after. It can't be changed once real.
- Use auto tick-off for standard billing, and only switch to manual allocation when you're invoicing specific costs.
- Set a default auto-allocate method in company settings if you regularly raise multi-phase invoices. It saves doing the split by hand every time.
- Check the Content tab before editing lines by hand. Changing build type afterwards will wipe your edits.
- If you're new to a client with several billing addresses, set these up as invoicing addresses early. It saves hunting for the right address on every invoice.