Overview
Invoices serve as the foundation of your business’s financial health. Leverage the powerful tools in Fergus to craft invoices that ensure you receive the correct payment. Whether you're finalising a job or looking to secure a deposit or progress payment, you can create invoices at any stage within Fergus. Taking control of your invoicing process has never been easier!
How to create an Invoice
On the Job Card, there is a section specifically for Invoicing. Opening this area will allow you to begin creating Invoices.
Click the "Create Invoice" button at the top right to open a list of the types of Invoices that can be created. You can create a new invoice, a quick invoice, a blank invoice, or an invoice from a quote.
Click "Create New Invoice" and a pop-up will open in Fergus prompting you to select costs that were added to the Phases against the Job.
Use the tick box to select individual items or select all. Switch between variations of the job on the left-hand side if additional work was required outside of the original job's scope. Expand "Importing Options" to control how costs are pulled through to the Invoice.
When you are ready, click "Add $X.XX to Invoice." You will be directed to a draft version of your Invoice.
Please note: The draft version of your invoice allows you to review it and make final adjustments before sending it off.
Creating a Quick Invoice
A Quick Invoice is the fastest way to Invoice in Fergus; This pulls all the un-invoiced Labour and Materials recorded against the job's phase.
Please note: When you create a Quick Invoice for a job with an invoice to come, the materials listed on the invoice to come will be imported into the Draft Invoice. This is useful because some suppliers send their invoices close to the due date, and the time between purchase and invoice receipt can vary. Therefore, materials marked as "Invoice To Come" can be invoiced before reconciliation, enabling users to charge customers promptly.
Creating a Blank Invoice
Blank invoices provide a flexible foundation for your billing processes, allowing you to adapt them according to your unique business requirements. While you can easily integrate costs associated with specific "Job Phases," such as labour, materials, or overhead, the blank invoice also gives you the freedom to introduce any additional charges that may apply. This could include expenses like project management fees, travel costs, or custom services tailored to your client’s needs. This adaptability helps ensure that your invoices accurately reflect the work completed and maintain transparency with your customers.
Create Invoice from Quote/Estimate
To create an invoice from your quote/estimate, click "Create Invoice from Quote/Estimate" and you'll be shown the Add Costs screen with the Quote/Estimate tab selected.
Next, choose how you would like to invoice out your quote/estimate. There are three main options: Invoice out a percentage, invoice the remainder of the quote/estimate, or invoice out sections.
Invoice out a percentage of the currently accepted quote or estimate on the job. This will add a single combined line item to the invoice for the amount specified.
Select the first row and input the percentage of the quote you want to invoice.
The invoice draft will then include a combined line item containing a percentage of the quoted material price and the quoted labour price.
Invoice the remainder—This tool can be used if you've already sent out invoices and want to invoice any outstanding costs.
In the Add Costs page, select the second row to invoice the remainder of the quote.
Invoice out sections of the currently accepted quote/estimate. Select the last row and select the sections you want to invoice. To invoice the quote exactly like it was written, use the last option and tick Select All.
Invoice Margins and Discounts
Now that your costs are on the invoice, you can adjust markups, apply discounts, and choose what is visible to the customer.
Click the "Margins" button to adjust markups and discounts.
You can easily see the progress of your invoice: charge-up jobs will show you the progress toward your customer's budget, and quote and estimate jobs will show you progress toward the total quoted amount.
Another option to apply markup and discount is to use "Bulk Actions".
Tick the checkbox on each section to which you would like to apply the markup and/or discount, then click on the cog button for Bulk Actions. You may also untick the individual items to which you do not want to change the markup/discount.
From there, you can select the action you would like to take:
From there, you can apply the percentage you would like to apply then hit "Apply markup" or "Apply discount":
Formatting an Invoice
Click the pencil icon to adjust formatting options to view the different formatting options for your invoice.
Default Formatting Options: control what is visible on the final invoice to the customer. You can set a global setting here and override it in individual sections on the invoice.
Display labour descriptions on labour line items to show the time entry description below the labour time and employee name line. If this is unticked, each time the entry description is combined and displayed in the job phase section.
Apply Invoice templates
Click on the ellipse icon on the right side of the toolbar and select the “Template” icon from the drop-down menu.
The template dropdown will open, and you can see a dropdown box titled “Select template”
Press on the dropdown to select a template. You can also type into the input to search for templates.
Select the template and press Apply template.
Applying a new template will overwrite the currently applied template settings, including the document description and footer. The template will not affect any sections or line items added to the Invoice.
To apply the template, press Apply.
Please note: You can edit or add templates by clicking on the Edit/Add Template button or by navigating to Profile > Settings > Invoicing Settings > Templates.
Invoice Approval
To approve an invoice, click the "Approve" button, and a drop-down menu will appear. On the left, you'll see the phase on this job and be asked which to mark as invoiced. If you imported your job phases onto the invoice, they will be ticked automatically. If your job is finished, please make sure these are ticked, as this will update the job's status in Fergus.
Once you've clicked Approve, Fergus will confirm what to do with the job:
If you plan to come back to the job later, put it on hold and send it to the Pending column of the status board.
Create a new job phase if the job hasn't been fully completed just yet and you need to return.
Mark as complete if you know the job is 100% finished and your customer is happy!
Friendly Reminder - Invoice Number from Company Name (Job Number)
Thanks for taking the time to read our Article. If you have any questions, please get in touch via support@fergus.com