Customer billing
This is your centralized finance department for each customer. Here you can customize your customer's billing to suit agreements and unique terms made with the respective customer, with regards to how they will be billed and interactions thereof.
The customer Billing tab is divided into 3 sub-tabs:
- Finance documents - here you can create any type of financial documents for the customer and you can also check the list of all existing ones;
- Transactions - all operations related to the customer can be found here;
- Billing config - the billing configuration page for the specific customer in Splynx.
Finance documents
In this section can be found all financial documents related to the particular customer in Splynx or can be added the new ones:
- One-time invoice;
- Recurring invoice;
- Proforma invoice;
- Credit note;
- Payment;
- Future items;
- Statement
- Statements will not be displayed in the table under the Finance documents tab. But when a statement is added (generated), the options to send it to the customer's email, save to the customer's documents or download it as a PDF file will be available.
Invoices: One-time, Recurring and Proforma
Invoice is a financial document which indicates the supply of goods or services between a vendor and a customer.
One-time invoice is designed for a customer who pays an one-time cost to obtain the product or service. If they need it again, when they choose, they’ll pay again.
Recurring invoice is when the items or services are supplied to a customer on a regular basis and the automatic charge is applied. If there’s no change in services your customers regularly need, the usage of the recurring invoicing is more preferable.
Proforma invoice is a non-official estimated invoice in advance that is given to a customer before products or services are supplied. It looks almost identical to one-time/recurring invoice, however it doesn't care the same weight because it's provisional. In other words it's a 'good faith' agreement between the vendor and the customer, used to avoid unexpected charges down the line.
Let's consider the invoice statuses in details:
Status | Description |
---|---|
![]() |
the invoice has been created, but the customer has not made any payments towards the balance. The customer is expected to pay the invoice's amount due |
![]() |
the invoice has not been paid and is not yet past the due date but payment is sent for processing. Once the invoice payment is processed successfully, the invoice will be updated to either the Paid or Unpaid status. If the due period has been exceeded and the due amount hasn't been paid, a status will be changed to Pending Overdue or Overdue |
![]() |
the invoice was paid in full from customer's balance, the status is applied only if customer has enough funds |
![]() |
the payment was received, but it does not cover the full invoice amount (invoice total due amount). The statistics of Partially paid invoices will be included in the Due category of the Total invoiced table |
![]() |
no payment was received for this invoice and the Payment due date has already passed |
![]() |
the invoice was marked as deleted. If we apply the Mark as deleted option for unpaid invoice, the invoice will be marked as deleted and its auto (+Debit ) transaction (-s) will be removed. The manual transaction (-s), that was added to the invoice, will remain (even when Delete completely option was used) in any case. It's required to remove it manually |
Also, there are a number of operations that can be executed with the icons in the Actions column:
Action | Description |
---|---|
![]() |
View an invoice |
![]() |
View an invoice as a PDF file |
![]() |
Download an invoice as a PDF file |
![]() |
Send an invoice via Email/SMS or as a message to Customer portal |
![]() |
Edit a payment |
![]() |
Create credit note for the current invoice |
![]() |
Delete an invoice with/without transaction |
![]() |
Pay an invoice |
Usually, you can create a one-time invoice if you want to charge customer for One-Time Plan:
-
Click on the
button and in the drop-down list and chooseOne-time invoice
. -
In the new window, click on the
(breadcrumbs) icon and in the drop-down list choose the existing One-Time Plan, it will be automatically added to the invoice form with all details (e.g. price, VAT, description etc.).
In order to add the additional item (-s) to the invoice, press +
sign or use the option Add more items
, after that specify its date, price, quantity, description etc.
During the step of invoice creating you can modify the next option:
- Number - a number will be generated automatically. You can generate a new number using the button next to the field (an icon of magic wand). The invoice format number can be set in Finance settings;
- Document date - a transaction creation date;
- Period (only for a Recurring invoice ) - a period for which the invoice will be charged;
- Payment due date - the date by which the invoice must be paid. Please note, if you set the Payment due date value greater than the value in the Payment due field in the customer's Billing config, the customer will still be blocked the day after Payment due, but the Recurring invoice won't be with
Overdue
status. The optionSame as document date
means that the value is equal to zero. To be precise, when you create an invoice and theSame as document date
value is chosen in thePayment due (days after document date)
select list, thePayment due date
value of the invoice coincides with the date of invoice creation. - Note - some additional notes for the customer;
- Select plan - if the tariff plans have been created, you can select the necessary one in the selection menu. For a Recurring invoice, the plan will be loaded automatically, it's based on the service (-s) the customer uses;
- Description - a plan description, loaded automatically if you select a plan from the selection menu;
- Quantity - a property that is measured, e.g.
3
; - Unit - a standard quantity against which a quantity is measured, e.g.
hour
; which is unit of the above quantity (in most cases, cannot be applied for a recurring invoice with service plan. But can be used for One-time invoices, where payment is made per hour); - Price - a price of the plan, the value will be loaded automatically if the plan is chosen from the selection menu;
- VAT % - Value Added Tax is a flat tax levied on an item. Learn more about Taxes;
The option Load items from uncharged transactions in the One-time invoice can be used to add the future item (an uncharged transaction with the option Include transaction in next recurring invoice
).
- Press Save button to create the invoice.
- The items with negative price value can be added to the invoice, but the invoice total price cannot be with the negative amount, it can only be equal to
0
or greater than0
.
click here to see the step-by-step example
STEP 1
Create a future item (it's an uncharged transaction with the option Include transaction in next recurring invoice
):
STEP 2
Add some service in customer profile, e.g. Internet service
STEP 3
In Billing → Billing config
press the Charge & Invoice button to charge the customer
STEP 4
Double check if the future item has been added to newly created invoice
STEP 5
Delete the invoice completely using the (Delete) icon under
Billing → Finance documents
tab or press the Cancel last recurring invoice button under Billing → Billing config
tab. The current invoice includes the auto transaction (service charge - step 3) and future item (it was added manually on step 1).
The next warning message will be displayed:
If we apply the Cancel last recurring invoice action and the invoice includes not only the transaction of service charge, the warning message will be the next:
STEP 6
Check if the future item is present in Billing → Transactions
or in Billing → Finance documents
locations. Mind, that the future item can only be removed manually.
Also, take into consideration the following:
-
during the converting a quote to the invoice in customer's profile (
Lead → Quotes
tabs) or the converting some lead account to customer one, the auto transaction will be created. If we remove the created invoice, the auto transaction will be removed as well; -
if we create the invoice manually e.g. using the Add document → One-time invoice button and after that remove such invoice, its transaction will be removed automatically;
These statements and example above also apply to Delete
option in drop-down menu with mass Actions in Finance → Invoices
.
While deleting the Unpaid
invoice in the customer's profile under Billing → Finance documents
tab, it's possible to use Mark as delete
option instead of delete invoice completely. The option can be useful when we want to have a fuller context of the customer's billing flow.
In this case, the invoice will be marked as Deleted
, its auto transaction (-s) will be removed. The future item related to the invoice will remain in any case. But such future item can be deleted manually.
- The invoice (-s) with
Deleted
status cannot be reverted back toUnpaid
status, only the Delete completely option can be applied.
To edit an unpaid invoice click on the Billing → Finance documents
tab.
It is also possible to send invoice (-s) via email with the Billing → Invoices
.
You can write a message body manually or choose a template to populate it.
Also if a new body text is manually typed, you can save it as a new template.
Invoice Due Amount and Partial Payment
Due Amount - an invoice details how much your customer owes you when payment is due for some provided service. The total due amount depends on the total cost per service, fees (taxes), etc.
Partial Payment refers to the payment of an invoice that is less than the total amount due. In this case, the invoice will have the Partially paid
status.
Example #1
A customer was invoiced a total of 120$ and a 50$ payment was received. As a result, the invoice has the Partially paid
status and its total due amount is 70$.
If the next payment is more than the invoice due amount, the money will be added to customer's account balance. The invoice won't become overpaid, because the payment is added to the account balance, not directly to the invoice.
Delete invoice and payment
-
If an invoice is paid in one payment (payment amount is equal to the total invoice amount), that payment will be deleted along with the invoice deletion;
-
If an invoice is paid by more than one payment, that invoice cannot be deleted until all related payments are deleted;
- To check the payments which are related to the paid invoice, choose
All invoices
under customer's finance documents tab, find the necessary invoice in the table and in the Payment column, next to the invoice item, click on three dots to Show all payments.
If the Payment column is not displayed in the table, click the Show/hide columns icon and enable the Payment toggle.
- To delete a payment (-s) associated with an invoice, click on the IDs of displayed payments, the filter will be applied - the payments that are associated with a specific invoice ID will be displayed, click on the
(Delete) icon next to the necessary payment item.
- An invoice can be (partially) paid not only by a payment, but also by a credit note. The uncharged future item can be loaded/added to one time/recurring invoice as well.
Example #2
If a customer has a transaction (type: + Debit
) and has an invoice with Unpaid
status, and a new payment is received, the transaction will be paid off first, then the invoice.
Let's say, the transaction (type: + Debit
) is created equal to 100$. Also, the customer has the Unpaid
invoice for 50$. The customer makes the payment for 100$. The result is the following:
The invoice is still with Unpaid
status and there are no related payments to it.
If the customer makes the new payment for 50$, the invoice will be paid and payment relation will be added.
-
a
Partially paid
status does not apply to theOverdue
invoice; -
if a customer has several
Unpaid
invoices and payment is received, the invoices will be paid in the order of their creation.
To view an invoice as PDF with the Config → System → Templates
and also to specify the use of the selected/modified template in Config → System → Company information
.
On the Company information page, we define the Partner and its PDF Template (Invoice A4 Classic
item is selected as an example by default).
Once the PDF template is chosen, it will be possible to view the invoice in PDF format.
Please note that all templates can be customized, navigate to Config → Templates
, choose the type of templates to display/work with and simple edit or add a new template you wish to use:
The Finance format displayed on the invoice are customizable. Click on Config → Main → Localization
, to define the currency and other finance format settings.
In Config → Finance → Settings
can be found the global Invoices settings for all customers in Splynx system. In this menu, you can also define the Invoice number format, by default is used {year}{partner_id|2}{next|6}
format.
You might also be interested in Finance settings description.
Credit note
Credit Notes help to simplify the invoicing processes, it is useful for adjusting errors in created invoices. It allows you to lawfully amend an invoice, without having to delete or alter it.
In other words, the Credit Note - a -Credit
transaction added to customers account after making payments (increases customers account balance).
Example:
You sent to customer the invoice which contains an error and the invoice has been paid, as a result you need to re-bill the customer for the billing period. Since you can’t change an invoice’s total amount, you need to apply credit note to correct the balance. The experience with creating a new invoice with the negative price in order to refund a money to customer is now a thing of the past. The Credit notes provide accurate and complete records keeping of the transactions that occur after an invoice has been created.
Payment
Payment is a record that indicates an amount of money that has been paid. The Splynx can authorize the payment methods to be made using bank transfer, credit card, cash etc.
To show all payments that customer has made, select Payment
type and the list of items will be shown:
Usually a payment is related to specific invoice however it can be added manually as standalone in Splynx.
Future items
Future item - a transaction with the Include transaction in next recurring invoice
option enabled, it can be either +Debit
or -Credit
transaction, depends on what price value (negative/positive) is set there.
Example
A future item with R100 price will be shown as +Debit
transaction and a future item with negative price (-R200) will be represented as -Credit
transaction.
In other words, with the option Include transaction in next recurring invoice
, the created -Credit
transaction will appear in finance documents as future item with negative total price and vice versa.
The option Include transaction in next recurring invoice
defines if the current future item will be included to the next Recurring (or One-time invoice if the option Load items from uncharged transactions
was used) invoice.
-
A future item by itself will NOT change the customer account balance (! only for
Recurring
billing type) until it's loaded/added to One time/Recurring invoice; -
A future item that is used in the customer's profile with the billing type
Prepaid (Custom)
orPrepaid (Daily)
will change its account balance. To be precise, all transactions will be accounted; -
If the future item has already been loaded into an invoice, it loses its functions and becomes a transaction in the created invoice and change a customer's account balance;
-
A future item will automatically be added to the next Recurring invoice;
-
If the invoice includes at least one future item and we are going to remove this invoice, such future item can be removed only manually in the customer's finance documents;
-
The future item with negative price can be loaded to invoice as well, but the invoice total may be zero, but not negative.
Statement
Statement (an account statement) - is a document that summarizes and lists all the Invoice/Payments or Transactions records for a certain period of time. Such report can be sent to the customer on the email, saved to their documents or exported to the separate PDF file.
To add the Statement:
-
Click on the
button and in the drop-down list selectStatement
item; -
In the new window, specify the period (this/last month, custom range etc.), select what types of records should be included (
Invoice/Payments
orTransactions
) and press View button.
- Choose one of the next options: Send to customer, Save to document or Download as PDF.
You might also be interested in the Statements report tutorial.
The icon
The Total invoiced and Total paid tables show the statistic of all finance documents in relation to the particular customer. These tables can be found at the bottom of Finance documents tab. The Total paid table may differ depending on what payment methods are set up in the system.
The statistics of Partially paid
invoices will be included in the Due
category of the Total invoiced table.
We can also customize each of the table related to all types of finance documents - All/One-time/Recurring/Proforma invoices, Payments, Credit notes or Future itemss by enabling/disabling or drag&drop the fields in a preferred displaying way.
Transactions
Transactions are divided into 2 types: +Debit
and -Credit
.
+Debit
- a transaction added to customer account with amount to be paid (decreases customers account balance, money is taken out of the account);
-Credit
- a transaction added to customers account after making payments (increases customers account balance, money is added to customer account).
The transaction created with the enabled Include transaction in next recurring invoice
option is called - Future item:
Billing config
Billing config displays 6 main sections:
- Billing Settings
- Billing actions
- Proforma Invoice Settings
- Payment Accounts
- Billing Address
- Reminders Settings
Billing Settings:
In this section you can set up the billing parameters of the selected customer.
(The global settings for all customers are located in Config → Finance → Settings
).
Billing settings description:
- Billing Enabled - enables or disables billing for customer (whether the system should take customer into account or not);
- Payment period - period the customer will be billed for;
- Payment method - means in which way client will make payments; credit card, cash, etc.;
- Billing day - when the customer will be charged and invoices will be generated (default value is
1
st day of the month. The available values are from1
to28
); - Payment due (days after billing day) - when the customer needs to make payments before being blocked. Even though the customer will have a blocked status, their services will still be accounted (default value is
15
days afterbilling day
. The available values are from1
to28
). From Splynx v4.0, the current option cannot be disabled in select menu, that solved the problem when the invoices withoverdue
status could be created from scratch ; - Blocking period (days after payment due) - allows to extend the period when customer will be blocked (by default the value is
0
days. The available values areDo not block
and from0
to99
days). The optionDo not block
allows to disable customer blocking afterPayment due
date, if the option is enabled, the customer deactivation won't work as well. In addition, if the value is set toDo not block
, the status of the Next block field will be shown asDisabled
for current customer ; - Next block - the indicator for customer's profile with recurring billing type that shows the date when customer will be blocked. Click on
(Edit) button to change the next block date. To be precise, it implies that the date of the last charge (from which the billing due is calculated) will be changed. Pay attention that the blocking date will be changed only once for the current billing period based on the unpaid recurring invoice. In case, the optionsBlock customers on weekends / on holidays
inConfig → Finance → Automation
are not used and the date of blocking coincides with the weekends or holidays (Holidays list inConfig → Main → Localization
), the date of block will be moved to the next available workday in your area. If the parameterEnable processing of Billing Due
inConfig → Finance → Automation
is disabled, the status will be shown asDisabled in config
. The statusAlready blocked
means that customer has been blocked, the statusIn the next billing cycle
means that the customer's balance exceeds the minimum required value; - Deactivation period (days after blocking) (Grace period) - when the customer's services will be marked as inactive, client no longer uses services and the system no longer accounts for it (by default the value is
10
. The available values areDo not block
and from1
to99
days afterPayment due
); - Minimum balance - defines the minimum amount of funds that must be available in the customer account balance at any time, even after the service charge, in order to avoid blocking. The default value is
0
. This value can be changed to another according to your needs. The negative value (e.g.-50
) is allowed to use as well;
Example
Minimum balance is a minimum amount of money that customer has to keep on their balance, maintaining a minimum balance will allow customer to avoid being blocked on the next day after Billing due. It means a customer balance cannot drop below the specified amount at any time during billing cycle.
For instance, a customer uses some Internet service (e.g. its price is R100) and has the next settings on the Billing overview tab:
- Billing day = 1;
- Billing due = 15;
The recurring invoice will be auto generated on the 1st day of next month. Let's say that a customer will pay R100 for the invoice on the same day when the invoice is created.
-
If we have
0
(zero) value as a minimum balance requirement, a customer won't be blocked, because their balance will be equal to the set value. -
If a customer balance becomes negative, customer will be blocked on the 16th day of the month.
- If we have
50
value as a minimum balance requirement, a customer need to pay R150 for the invoice to keep R50 on the balance to avoid blocking. If a customer has less than 50 on the balance, they will be blocked.
- If we have
-50
value as a minimum balance requirement, a customer can pay only R50 for the invoice, because it's allowed to have a negative balance, but no less (-60
,-70
etc.) than-50
. Pay attention, if a customer pays R60, the account balance will be-40
that is acceptable value. Even if a customer pays the full price for the invoice, the account balance will be equal to0
and, as a result, a zero value will be greater than allowed minimum balance.
- Partner percent - shows the individual partner percent value the customer belongs to. The global
Partner's commission (%)
setting is located inConfig → System → Company Information
; - Auto create invoices - toggle enables/disables an automatic invoice generation for specific customer when the Charge & Invoice button was used in
Customers → View → Billing Overview
. The global option to Enable automatic issuing is located inConfig → Finance → Automation
(see Automation config)
When the toggle Auto create invoices is not enabled under the customer's
Billing → Billing config
tab, you can create invoice manually using the Add document → One-Time invoice or Add document → Recurring invoice buttons underBilling → Finance documents
tab;
- Send billing notifications - toggle allows individually to enable/disable finance notifications for customer, the global configuration is located in
Config → Finance → Notifications
.
Payment Accounts
The accounts of customer which are used to make payments in Splynx.
You can edit the available accounts to add customers accounts details with the "+" icon.
Billing address
Billing address can be configured here if it is different to the address on the Main information tab of the customer. By default, it is left empty and the address is taken from the Main information tab of the customer.
Specific billing address can be set here if the customer uses a different address for billing from the listed one on the Main Information page.
Billing actions
The actions section provide a quick access toolbox when dealing with customer billing.
Charge & Invoice
Customers can be charged manually with the Charge & Invoice
button.
Simply click on the button, a Charge and Invoice window will appear where you can select the date and period of charging, then click on Preview
to view service (-s) description and click on Charge & Invoice
button to manually charge the customer.
The system will automatically charge the customer and the new transaction and invoice items will be created, they can be viewed in the Transactions or Finance documents tab.
- If you charge a customer manually, the new invoice will be created only if the
Auto create invoices
toggle is enabled in customer'sBilling → Billing config → Billing settings
;
- The global
Auto create invoices
setting is located inConfig → Finance → Settings
(Invoices settings section).
Payment Calendar
Payment Calendar is used to generate a payment schedule list which defines the dates and amounts of payments to be made in the selected period.
You can generate a payment calendar for a customer using templates.
By default payment calendar generating is disabled. To enable it you need to activate the Payment Calendar
option in Config -> Finance -> Settings
.
Under the Billing Settings section, the calendar shows the dates of billing, blocking and deactivation of the customer, the calculation is based on the values set in Billing day
, Payment due
, Deactivation period
fields, the changes made in the field Next block will be ignored.
Cancel last recurring invoice
This button can be used to cancel the previous bill of a customer. This feature ensures that charges are cleared appropriately in the system by deleting the invoice and transaction pertaining to the charge.
Save
Save any change made in the customer Billing tab, the button is located at the bottom of the page.
Proforma Invoice settings
In Proforma Invoice settings section it is possible to enable the option Enable Auto Proforma Invoice
creation for the current or next month as well as being able to choose a prepay payment period (up to 12 months).
Reminders settings
In Reminders settings section you can enable automatic sending of reminders to customers to remind them to pay for their services.