Invoicing

The invoicing feature makes it very easy to email or print formatted invoices containing your own logo. An invoice is made up of one or more invoice lines and payment records. There's full support for advance payment or deposit invoices and final invoices.

Base Rate

When a booking is first created you enter a base rate, this represents the combined price of a stay and can include room, breakfast, tourist tax and other cost. The system will add an invoice line called "base rate" or will split the base rate amount across one or more invoice lines as defined by the selected base rate template. For instance you may have a template for room and breakfast, in which case 2 invoice lines are created and breakfast set to a defined fixed amount and the remainder for the room rate. Each line can have a different tax rate too. See Base Rate Templates for more info.

Normally set the base rate just once when the booking is first created, additional services and purchases can be added as invoice lines.

Advance Payments and Deposit Invoices

Did you know when you receive an advance payment or deposit that creates a VAT tax point. At which point you should report the VAT in your current VAT period and issue a correct invoice showing how the deposit payment has been allocated for VAT. Well Guestbook 247 provides support for producing and saving deposit invoices. For more background info see blog.guestbook247.com/2018/02/advanced-payment-and-deposit-tax.html

If you want a deposit invoice simply record the payment received and access the invoice page for the booking. The Invoice will show all the services and product cost and how the deposit payment has been allocated to those with details of the VAT breakdown. When you are ready click the "Close Off Invoice" on the Invoice Preview page to save this deposit invoice.

On receipt of further advance payments or the final balancing amount then simply record the payment and access the Invoice page again. This time the open invoice will show all the services and product cost and how this payment has been allocated, taking into account what items were charged VAT on any previous invoices. Will also show a summary of previously processed payments and invoices.

Access Closed Invoices

From the booking's Invoice Edit page there's a list of all invoices for the bookings. By default the currently open invoice is selected. By selecting another invoice and clicking Preview Invoice you can access the closed invoice and re-print or email. All information relating to a closed invoice is saved at time of Closing, so will never change.

Hey I don't care about Invoices for deposits!

No worries. if you only ever want to produce an invoice for the full payment amount then simply access the invoice preview once all payments have been recorded in Guestbook 247. No need to close off the invoice either.

Examples

Additional Chargeable Items

Additional services and chargeable items can be easily added to a booking at any time. Each invoice item is associated with an invoice category, this allows you to group invoice items for later reporting and setting up default values. For instance you can create an invoice category called "Airport Transfer" and set defaults like the price and tax rate.

Vat Registered

The invoicing also take into account whether you are VAT registered or not. When you first access the invoicing feature you will be asked to provide your VAT details.

Invoice Edit

From either the booking edit page or the booking details popup there's an invoice button. If it's the first time you access the invoice feature you will be asked if you are VAT registered.The Invoice Edit page allows you to review payments, invoice lines, guest details and to configure the invoice through adding invoice note, including guest address, language choice etc.

Add Invoice Item

From this page you can see the current list of invoice line items. Click on the Description of an invoice line to edit the details. Click the button "Add Invoice Item" to add a new invoice item.

The 2 images above show the Add Invoice Item pop-up, the one on the left is when No VAT is configured whilst the other is when VAT is configured. For each invoice item a category needs to be selected, you can add your categories, see below. By selecting a category most the other fields will be filled in but you may want to overwrite the Price or Quantity for instance.

Manage Categories

Your account comes preconfigured with some invoice categories but you can edit, remove and add your own categories. Though the "Base Rate" category can not be removed. For each category you can define the default values for items like the price, vat rate etc. To quickly add a new category click the "Add Category" button from the invoice page or to manage all categories access the Setup option "Invoice Categories"

Add Quick Payment

When a guest checks out you will probably need to access the Invoice page to check if there is any outstanding balance and to record such payment. Click the "Add Quick Payment" button to record a payment, this is similar to adding a payment from the Booking Edit page but you don't need to provide due amount or due date information, these are set for you. See the payments help page for more information.

Invoice Date and Notes

By default each booking invoice will have an invoice date set to today's date, this can be overridden from selecting a new date in the "Invoice Date" field. The "Invoice Note" provides a free text field that will be included on the final invoice.

Invoice Numbers

To make life as easy as possible the system will auto assign an invoice number the first time an invoice is accessed. This invoice number is based upon the last saved invoice, taking the last invoice number and incrementing by 1. However the invoice number can be overtyped, doing so the system will check that it's a unique invoice number, so you can never get duplicate invoice numbers. To the right of the invoice number field a green tick or red cross will display, a red cross means the invoice number is already in use.

Despite being called an invoice number it can contain letters. For instance you could type in "XTB176" as an invoice number. The next auto generated invoice number will be "XTB177". Note that only when you click "Preview Invoice" is the invoice number saved to the database.

Multi-Language Invoices

Currently invoices can be produced in English or German.

Preview, Email & Print Invoice

To preview and then email or print an invoice click the "Preview Invoice" button. This will show a formatted preview of invoice, see below.

To email the invoice simply click the email button, this will send to the email of the main guest. If the main guest has no email defined then the Email button is not displayed and a warning message is displayed that the email address is not set. To Print simply click the Print button.