There are many options available for defining your invoicing process, and the majority of these settings can be overwritten for certain customers. For example, you may have a standard invoice term of 30 days, however for select customers you allow 60 days. It can be a bit of a minefield trying to figure out how you need to set your platform up to get the results you need, this guide will walk you through what options are available and the considerations that you need to make.
Please note that if you have multiple Training Providers configured within your platform, it is possible to have different invoicing settings applied to each.
Invoice Generation
Invoices will be automatically created whenever a User makes a booking through the Shopping Basket and pays during this process (i.e. via Opayo (formally SagePay)). These Invoices will be marked as 'completed'.
For bookings where the payment method 'Invoice' is selected, there are two options available for generating the associated Invoices.
Invoices can either be generated automatically when a booking is processed, i.e. when a User completes a Shopping Basket booking, or they can be generated manually by an Administrator.
If you are not using the Shopping Basket within your accessplanit platform, and you are either adding Placeholders or Delegates directly onto courses, you will need to generate Invoices manually.
| Method | Pros | Cons |
|---|
| Automated Invoice generation | Less admin time required Customers can receive an email with details of their Invoice straight away | Invoices are booking specific, so you can not include two or more bookings within one Invoice No control over when the Invoices are generated |
| Manual Invoice generation | Admin control over when Invoices are generated and communicated Invoices can contain multiple bookings (i.e. all bookings made this month) | Customers need to wait for their Invoices Administrators need to stay on top of generating Invoices |
Invoice Terms & Due Dates
When defining the standard invoice terms for your customers, you first of all need to decide what the due date of the Invoice will be based on. There are several options for this:
- x days after Invoice generation.
- x days before/after the earliest course start date on the Invoice.
- x days before/after the latest course end date on the Invoice.
You then need to decide how many days:
| Example | Invoice Term Setting | Course Date(s) | Invoice Generated | Invoice Due |
|---|
| 1 | 30 days after invoice generation | 5th Nov 2018 - 9th Nov 2018 | 28th Sept 2018 | 28th Oct 2018 |
| 2 | 30 days after earliest course start date | 5th Nov 2018 - 9th Nov 2018 18th Dec 2018 - 19th Dec 2018 | 28th Sept 2018 | 5th Dec 2018 |
| 3 | 60 days after latest course end date | 5th Nov 2018 - 9th Nov 2018 18th Dec 2018 - 19th Dec 2018
| 28th Sept 2018 | 17th Feb 2019 |
| 4 | 7 days before earliest course start date | 5th Nov 2018 - 9th Nov 2018 18th Dec 2018 - 19th Dec 2018
| 28th Sept 2018 | 29th Oct 2018 |
| 5 | 7 days before latest course end date | 5th Nov 2018 - 9th Nov 2018 18th Dec 2018 - 19th Dec 2018
| 28th Sept 2018 | 12th Dec 2018 |