It is important to define an invoicing process that suits the requirements of your accounts and management team. You would need to set certain norms such as who generates final invoices, and how often. This tutorial covers how to generate invoices, for more information on how to change what information is shown on Invoices, see the Reservation documents tutorial.
When a reservation is created, all financial transactions pertaining to the reservation are allocated to a financial folio. The folios can be viewed and managed via the Financial > Folios/invoices tab of the reservation. Open up the folio as a PDF by merely selecting the Folio row.
Once the details of the reservation are finalized and the Reservation status is set to Confirmed, the folios can be converted into valid Tax invoices. This may be done from the reservation (Financial tab > Folios/Invoices) or from a report such as the Folio/invoice report.
Invoices generated from your system are allocated a reference number in sequential order as they are generated. Be cautioned that once a folio has been invoiced, it CANNOT be edited. The user would have to credit or void the invoice if edits are required after invoicing. It’s often accepted practise to send proformas to clients instead of tax invoices so invoicing early, before details are finalised, can be avoided.
It’s generally good practise to only invoice folios once the guests have traveled. You can set a default invoice date to the date of guest departure so this remains consistent. Alternately, you may use reports to help you with bulk invoicing.
When opened for the first time, the Invoice opens as a ‘Preview Tax Invoice – [booking number]’. When opened as a PDF it will open as a ‘Tax Invoice – [booking number]’.
Every time the invoice is opened post-initial opening, it displays as a copy as a ‘Copy Preview Tax Invoice – [booking number]’. When opened as a PDF it will open as a ‘Copy Tax Invoice – [booking number]’.
Generate invoices in bulk from the Folio/Invoice Report:
Note: If you are using the ResRequest Financial Interface then invoicing is particularly important as only folios that have been invoiced may be exported in batches to your accounting system. See the Financial Interface section for more information.
The heading which displays on the Invoice and the default invoice date are set up in the system Defaults (Admin > System > Defaults > Documentation). The details which appear in the document header are set up on the business structure. These settings should be set up in the Business structure during the implementation phase of your system setup.
For more details on producing invoices see the Producing invoices tutorial in the Financial module.
