Invoice totals and descriptions on bill

I'm having some issue trying to display the propper "Total amout of this invoice" on our invoices.

 

In the Designer under Section > Configure Layout Sections... there's a few options for displaying totals. It seems there's a hierarchy to the rules on how these are displayed. My examples assume all 4 of these options are checked.

 

1. Total Time Charges

2. Total Expense Charges

3. Total Time & Expense Charges

4. Total New Charges

 

If I have an invoice with only time charges, the only "bottom line" amount with description is for 1. Total Time charges. The same is true for an invoice with only expense charges, only that 2. Total Expense Charges is displayed instead.

 

If I have an invoice with both time and expense charges, then both 1 and 2 are displayed along with 3. Total Time & Expense Charges.

 

We don't charge taxes or assess finance charges, but we do charge interest. If an invoice has either time or expense charges (or both), along with interest charges, then the above rules apply, but we also get 4. Total New Charges.

 

This is confusing for many clients because one bill will only show "For Professional Services Rendered" as the total invoice amount (if only time charges are present), while others will show "for profess...", "Total Costs" and a 2nd "for professional serv...." as the bottom line item. Also, if a client has interest charges, then the "for profess..." is not the total amount, but "Total New Charges" is displayed at the bottom.

 

This might not sound like a big issue until you start doing consolidated billing. Since this basically prints all the master clients invoices in one document,  the first sub-project could have time, expense and interest charges, so it shows a bottom line of "Total New Charges" for that project. Then the subsiquent projects only have time, so they only display "for profess...". This gives the impression than the first "Total New Charges" is the complete amount.

 

If I try to change "for professonal services rendered" phrase for just the time charges, say I want to display "For time charges only", it also changes the phrase for 3. Total Time & Expense Charges. Ideally, I'd like to change 1. to just a phrase for time and 3. to just a phrase for time & epenses.

 

Also, I want 4. to display on all invoices. So if there's only time charges, it would display both "for professional services rendered" (or the custom phrase I set" as well as "Total New Charges", even though they're the same amount.

  • I agree with you completely that the way that Timeslips displays and labels subtotals is confusing.  We ended up putting a field at the VERY TOP of our invoices (in a "group" with the invoice number and In Reference To fields) that shows the total amount currently due.  This, unfortunately, is also not as straighforward as you might think, so someone in this board must have told me what to do.  The actual field name is "Discount: Balance if paid early"!  (On our bills, it includes the current amount due, plus any unpaid previous amount(s) due.  So, this would be the wrong field to use on a bill that is more like an individual invoice, with no other A/R history affecting the invoice.)

     

    I'm fairly sure that you can change the wording on some things on the bills, and maybe supress some fields,   It might be nice if the "For professional services rendered" and the "For additional charges" could be made to show $0.00 when there is nothing, and the "Total amount of this bill" could be forced to display all the time.  Maybe it can be done, but I don't know.

     

    So I don't actually have a solution for you, but I am curious about what responses we get from the experts!

     

    -laurie

  • You know, I tried the exact same thing, but I couldn't find a field that would let me show any kind of total for the bill header. And you are correct, a total amount due (current invoice + past due amounts) is not what I'm looking for. Honesty, if I could simply put a "Total New Charges" at the top and simply exclude everything but time & Expense totals for the individual invoices, that would be just fine!

     

    I did manage to somewhat get around this by first turning off "total new charges" in the layout section and selecting "Print a summary of all projects." I then modified the project summary layout by deleting all the text in the Project Summary Headers. Then in the Project Summary Client Totals, I put the "Client - New Charges Total" field in large bold font with the label "Total New Charges" at the top, then listing the proect totals in a table below that.

  • Try omitting the Total Time & Expenses section and just leace the other 3. I find this section is generally not needed unless you are using a biling arrangement that merges time & expenses.

    You can put what you want at the top of the invoice. If the token is available you can include it in the header section. It not, then you could use a custom section at the top of the bill to include the total.

    The wording can be changed in one of two places, depending on what it is.

    - Go to the configure layout sections -  click on the section and choose options then phrases. 

    - Go to layout - phrases

    If you need help any of the certified consultants can help you make the bill look the way you want it. It's the type of thing that is not difficult, but when you rarely do it it can be a bit tricky. Whether it makes sense to try to do it yourself, depends on how much time you want to spend.