What's New - November 6, 2023

Combine multiple estimates on one client job invoice

What is it? 

You can now create a client job invoice with multiple approved estimates. On the Estimate Scheduled Invoices page, the option "Invoice at Master Job Level?" has been re-labeled to "Combine Into Single Invoice for this Job/Master Job?".  This new option supports 2 scenarios: 

1. Client invoicing at the master job level, combining multiple sub-jobs.  This functionality remains the same and not impacted by the label change. 
2. NEW - Client invoicing at the job level, combining multiple estimates.  See details below. 

Why does it matter? 

This function provides an alternate way for an agency to forecast and manage revenue by department. In this method, an agency would create one job with multiple estimates, each representing a department's contribution. 

Each department (via the Estimate) could then have its respective revenue tracker to define how to distribute its share of revenue across the duration of the job. 

How does it work? 

1. Map Task Type to Department.  Click here for steps on managing task types. 
2. Create a job and an estimate for each department's contribution to the job. 
3. Create a revenue tracker for each estimate.  Click here to learn more. 
4. Create a billing schedule for each estimate. See Scheduled Invoices for details.  Select the option to "Combine into single invoice for this job/master job?" 
   
5. Navigate to Accounting>Receivables>Invoice Multiple Estimates and follow the steps to generate invoices based on the billing schedule you created.  
   
   You'll see that there are two Estimates for job FOR0007 that are flagged to be combined into one job invoice. 
   
   Each estimate has 3,740.83 scheduled to be billed this month, so the combined invoice shows a total of 7,481.66 as shown on the sample draft invoice below.  

Invoice layout and description

The logic for deriving Layout and Invoice Description when combining multiple estimates on one client job invoice is now as follows:

Layout

If each estimate being invoiced has the same layout - we assign that layout as default on the combined invoice, otherwise we default the layout to 'Line Items'. However, this can be changed on the draft invoice to another layout option without having to go into the individual estimates to update.

Description

• If the same text entry is applied to all Scheduled Invoices ‘Invoice Notes’ for the relevant month, then that description is applied to the combined invoice. Otherwise, the description will default to Notes on the Estimate Headers - see next point below.
• If there are no invoice notes on the Scheduled Invoices but there are 'Notes' on the source Estimate headers (i.e. same text on all related estimates), the description on the invoice will default from the estimates instead otherwise will default to blank.
• The defaulted description can be updated on the draft invoice using the 'New Heading' function.

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