Billing and collections

Where it lives

• Finance › Billing is the desk for every client's invoicing at once.
• Finance › Collections is what is owed, how late it is, and who is chasing it.
• The engagement page (Clients › Engagements, then open one) has a Billing section with the engagement's own schedule, invoices, chases and terms. See Clients and accounts.
• An invoice opens in a panel from any of these, and prints from its own page.

How billing works

Every engagement has a schedule: the payments the client is expected to make. Each payment has a kind, and kinds combine on one schedule:

• Deposit, Instalment, Recurring and Custom payments have a date.
• Milestone payments wait on a project milestone and have no date until they are invoiced. A guessed date would make the client late on the day the project slipped.

Each payment shows where it stands. Nobody sets these by hand; they are read from dates, milestones, invoices and payments:

• Waiting on delivery: a milestone payment whose milestone is not done.
• Scheduled: a dated payment that is not due yet.
• Ready to invoice: its milestone is delivered, or its date is within a fortnight.
• Invoiced: on an issued invoice that is not yet due.
• Overdue: past its date and not paid.
• Defaulted: the client is not going to pay it on its terms, and finance is recovering it. See "When a client defaults" below.
• Paid.

How far ahead a dated payment becomes ready to invoice is 14 days unless your workspace changes it in Organisation › Rules & automation, under Collections.

When a milestone is completed in Projects, whoever completed it is told how much became ready to invoice, and the engagement's officer gets an Invoice row in My work.

The engagement's Billing section

Four tabs:

• Schedule. Every payment with its due date (or "When … is delivered"), amount and state. Tick payments and press Create invoice for … to start a draft. Add a payment adds one to the schedule, and pressing a payment that is not yet invoiced or paid changes it or takes it off. Money with no invoice records a transfer that arrived before its invoice. A line at the foot says whether the schedule adds up to the contract value; recurring payments are left out of that check.
• Invoices. The engagement's invoices, with any credit the client holds. Start an invoice by hand opens a blank draft.
• Chases. Every call, message and promise to pay logged for the engagement, with Log a call or a promise.
• Terms. The kind of engagement, when it runs, the payment terms, the account it pays into, and anything else agreed. Change the terms edits them.

A milestone payment needs a project with milestones delivering the engagement. If there is none, the sheet says so and points to Work › Projects.

Terms

• What kind of engagement: one-off sale, instalment sale, project or contract, retainer, subscription, booking or service agreement. It decides which payment kind is offered first; every kind is always available.
• Starts and Ends. Leave the end blank for a sale.
• Payment terms, days: how long the client has to pay an invoice.
• Anything else agreed: notice period, late-payment terms, exclusions.
• Client's own bank and Account number: a dedicated account for this client, if your payment provider issued one. It is printed on the client's invoices in place of the workspace's account.
• A tick for a client from before Rople, which leaves the engagement out of source attribution.

The Billing desk

Where: rople.app/w/finance?view=billing

Four figures: Ready to invoice, Invoiced, unpaid (and how much of it is overdue), Received this month, and Drafts.

If your invoice details have no legal name, TIN or bank details, a notice says so with Add your invoice details.

Five tabs:

• Ready. Every payment that can be invoiced now, grouped by client. That includes a payment whose date has passed without an invoice. Create invoice starts one draft for that client. Tick payments across several clients and press Create invoices for … ticked to start one draft per client.
• Drafts. Invoices started and not issued. Nobody outside has seen them.
• Issued. Issued invoices still waiting on payment, including part paid and overdue ones.
• Paid.
• Credit notes. Every credit note, with the invoice it was against and why.

Invoice details, at the right of the tabs, opens the workspace's billing profile.

Drafts

A draft has no number and nobody outside sees it. In the panel you can change:

• the lines: description, quantity and price, with + Add a line;
• VAT % and WHT % (withholding tax, deducted by the client);
• Due: leave it blank to use the engagement's payment terms;
• Payment link: optional, and the one in your invoice details is used when it is blank;
• Note to the client.

The totals show subtotal, VAT, total and, where there is withholding, the amount to pay.

Issue invoice gives it the next number in your workspace's series, today's date and your invoice details. From then on it is never edited; it is corrected with a credit note. Save draft keeps it as it is. Discard draft throws it away; because a draft has no number, discarding one leaves no gap.

An issued invoice

The panel shows the invoice as the client will see it, and what can happen to it next:

• Print or save as PDF opens the invoice on its own page. Choose "Save as PDF" in the browser's print dialog to make the file you send.
• Record a payment: amount received, the date, how it was paid (bank transfer, card, cash, cheque, POS or other) and the bank or teller reference. Record and receipt it gives it a receipt number. A part payment leaves the invoice partly paid; more than was owed is held as credit for the client.
• Credit or cancel (managers, level 3): a credit note with an amount and a reason. A credit for the whole unpaid amount cancels the invoice, and what it billed becomes ready to invoice again. Money already received is refunded, not credited.
• Pay online (Paystack) asks Paystack for a payment page for what is still owed, puts the link on the invoice and copies it. It needs Paystack connected in Workspace settings › Integrations; see Integrations. A payment made on that page is recorded on the invoice by itself.
• Email invoice sends the invoice to the client's email address in your workspace's name, with you copied. It is greyed out when the invoice has no client email.
• Apply … credit to this invoice appears when the client holds money that arrived with nothing to match it to. Credit is never applied without somebody pressing this.

Payments received lists each payment with its receipt number. Senior management (level 3) and above see two actions on each:

• Refund raises a payment request in Payables for money given back to the client, approved and paid like any other. See Procurement.
• Reverse is for a receipt recorded by mistake, such as the wrong client or a bounced cheque. It needs a reason, and the receipt is kept with the reason rather than deleted.

Money with no invoice

A transfer sometimes arrives before its invoice, or nobody can say yet what it is for. Record it from the engagement's Schedule tab with Money with no invoice. It is receipted and held as credit until somebody applies it to an invoice.

Invoice details

The workspace's billing profile: legal name (as registered with the CAC), TIN, address, the email and phone printed on invoices, VAT % and WHT %, payment terms in days, the prefixes for invoice, credit note and receipt numbers, the bank, account number and account name, a standing payment link, and a footer printed at the foot of every invoice.

The details are copied onto each invoice when it is issued, so correcting them never changes an invoice a client already holds. Everybody who opens Billing can read them; managers (level 3) and above can change them.

Collections

Where: rople.app/w/finance?view=receivables

Three parts, top to bottom.

What is outstanding, and how late. Every unpaid payment, in five buckets: not yet due, 1–30 days late, 31–60, 61–90 and over 90, with the amount and the number of payments in each.

Chase list. One row per client with money past its date or a broken promise, oldest debt first. Each row shows:

• the client, the engagement reference and its officer;
• how far it has been escalated: With the owner, Escalated to their manager (from 7 days late), or Flagged to finance (from 30 days late);
• how much is overdue and how many days late;
• the latest promise to pay and the last chase.

The escalation days are your workspace's to change, in Organisation › Rules & Automation, under Collections.

Log opens the chase sheet. Choose what it was: a call, message, visit, note, promise to pay or escalation, and write what happened. A promise to pay also asks how much and by when. Anybody collecting can log a chase.

In recovery. Every client with payments recorded as defaulted and not yet paid, largest first: what they defaulted on, when, who recorded it and why, and how much has come back since. It only appears when something is in recovery.

Collection rate by officer. Of what fell due in the last ninety days, how much each officer's clients have paid. A payment the client defaulted on is left out, unless it is paid after all.

When a client defaults

Sometimes a client will not pay: they dispute the work, stop answering, or close their account. Recording the default takes the debt off its owner's desk and gives it to finance to recover, so the owner can move on.

Record it from the engagement's Schedule tab, with Defaulted? beside an overdue or invoiced payment, or from the chase list on Finance › Collections, with Defaulted on the client's row. Tick the payments they defaulted on and say why. A milestone payment can be defaulted on once it is invoiced; before that the client does not owe it yet.

Once it is recorded, the payment:

• shows as Defaulted on the schedule, with the date and who recorded it, and an invoice billing only defaulted payments shows as Defaulted;
• leaves the chase list, its owner's My work, and the overdue notices (the ones already sent are put away);
• stops counting against its owner's collection rate and the cycle's Overdue at the end from that day (a cycle that closed earlier keeps the figure it closed with);
• stops counting in Finance › Finance position's Past its due date and ageing, and shows under In recovery in Where the money is instead;
• is left out of the cash forecast and the monthly forecast;
• makes the client read In recovery on Clients, and High risk in client health.

A broken promise to pay made before the default goes to recovery with it. A promise the client makes afterwards is held to as usual.

Nothing is written off and nothing is marked paid. If money arrives later, record it as usual: it settles the payment, counts as collected on the day it arrived, and shows as recovered. The instalment button skips a defaulted payment unless you choose it.

Back to collections (on the schedule, or on the recovery list) puts a defaulted payment back, for a default recorded by mistake or a client who is paying on terms again. It returns to its owner's collections, read from its dates as usual.

The engagement's owner and their manager are told when a default is recorded. Both acts are kept on the engagement's Chases tab.

Promises to pay

Nobody ticks a promise as kept. Rople reads it from the payments that arrive:

• Promised until the date passes.
• Kept when at least the promised amount arrived between the day it was made and the day it named.
• Broken when the date passes without it.

On the promised day the officer gets a My work row to check it arrived. A broken promise comes back to My work on its own, and the Cash forecast places a live promise's money on the promised day.

Who may do what

• Read the Billing and Collections desks: anybody who can open Finance, and a department your workspace gave Billing or Collections to. Opening an invoice also needs Clients. Below level 3 the desks show the engagements you and your team look after; finance admins see every one.
• Shape a schedule, raise and issue an invoice, record a payment, apply credit, take a pay link or email an invoice: team leads (level 2) and above.
• Credit an invoice, refund or reverse a payment, change the invoice details: managers (level 3) and above.
• Log a chase or a promise: anybody collecting.
• Record a default, or put one back into collections: managers (level 3) and above, and finance admins at any level. The person collecting cannot take their own debts off their collection rate.

How it connects

• Completing a milestone in Projects makes its payment ready to invoice.
• My work shows Invoice rows for delivered milestones and Promise rows for promises due today or broken.
• Payments received feed Collected on Finance › Finance position and in Cycles, and the cash book in Finance.
• Refunds go out through Payables, in Procurement.
• Defaults leave My work, the collection rate and Cycles' overdue figure, and show on Finance › Finance position under In recovery.

What is not built yet

• Invoices are not sent by WhatsApp.
• Invoices are not submitted for e-invoicing, although they hold the fields it needs.
• A dedicated account per client is typed into the engagement's terms; Rople does not create one with your bank or payment provider.

Common questions

Can I edit an issued invoice? No. Issue a credit note for what is wrong and raise a new invoice. The client's copy never changes underneath them.

Can I delete an invoice? A draft, yes. An issued invoice is cancelled with a credit note for the whole unpaid amount.

A client paid more than the invoice. Where did the money go? It is held as credit on the engagement. Apply it to the client's next invoice from that invoice's panel.

Why is a milestone payment not in Collections? Because it has no date until it is invoiced. It counts as owed from the invoice's due date.

Why can I see an invoice but not record a payment? Recording a payment starts at team leads (level 2). Your seat can read the invoice but not change it.