Edition: Business, Enterprise
User-level: Project Manager and above
Previous steps: How to create an invoice
Pre-billing lets you invoice clients up-front and attach the work transactions to this invoice later on.
What is a Pre-bill?
A Pre-bill is an invoice for work you have not yet completed. Once the invoice has been generated you can retrospectively add transactions to the invoice to make up the amount that has been invoiced in advance.
Pre-billing requirements
You can only pre-bill stages with certain fee types in Synergy including:
Fixed fee
Percent of contract.
You are not able to use the Hourly rates fee type as it needs to be a specific figure on the invoice.
The effect of Credits and Write-offs on Pre-bills
Credits and Write-offs impact pre-bills differently. The balance left in the pre-bill after applying a pre-bill or a write off is always the revenue amount.
Credit Note
Applying a credit note to a pre-bill will alter the $/£ amount in line with the credit note. For example, applying a credit note of 50% to a pre-bill of $/£200 will reduce the pre-bill to $/£100.
Write-off
Writing off a pre-bill will not impact the $/£ amount of the pre-bill to the customer. For example, writing off a pre-bill of $/£200 will not impact the pre-bill amount, it will remain $/£200. This is because the pre-bill balance is based on the revenue amount, and write-offs do not impact the revenue amount of the transaction.
How to generate a Pre-bill
In the top right hand corner of the project invoices tab, select 'Add' to create an invoice.
Check the box to include this stage in the invoice
Open the stage details by clicking the blue hyperlinked stage name.
When no transactions have been entered:
When you click on the stage you want to invoice, you will only have the invoice method option of pre-bill. You will not be able to choose other methods if you don’t have WIP on that stage.
Enter how much of the stage fee you want to invoice either as a percentage (Invoiced %) or as a value (Total ex. Tax) . This is the pre-bill balance for future transactions.
When there are WIP transactions:
When you already have WIP transactions that you need to invoice, you will be presented with three different invoice methods.
Pre-bill - if you have WIP transactions, you can still select pre-bill as the invoice method. Selecting this method will not allow you to select any of the WIP transactions. The invoice will display the amounts you have entered in either the Invoiced % or the Total ex. Tax fields. You can choose to invoice the WIP transactions later, write them off or attach them to the pre-bill.
Mark up/mark down - this is the selected default method when you have WIP. When you use this method, your transactions are marked up or marked down depending on the Total ex Tax field.
WIP + Pre-bill - with this method your WIP can not be marked up or marked down. It will be used at charge value. If your invoice value is greater than your WIP transactions value the remaining balance will be the pre-bill.
Example: You have WIP amounting to $/£400 but want to invoice $/£1000. When you create an invoice with this method, it will create a $/£1000 invoice using the $/£400 in WIP and $/£600 as a prebill.
How to assign WIP to a Pre-bill
Navigate to the pre-bill page. Go to Project menu > Financials > Pre-bill
Here you will be able to view all stages from invoices that have the invoice method 'pre-bill' . Select 'Assign WIP' to the right hand side of the pre-bill amount.
When you click on a stage, you are presented with a dialog with up to three 'Select WIP' options
All WIP
This will select all WIP transactions against this stage.
WIP From
This will allow you to select WIP from a specific date range. By default, the date range is the earliest and last WIP transactions. Choose this method if you want to select a specific date range for your WIP eg. the last 15 days or from the last month.
Use Approximately
This method is only shown if you have more WIP than your pre-bill. Choose this method if you want to close the pre-bill.
Once you have chosen 1, 2, or 3 from above, you will be presented with different options to either mark-up, markdown, or use the exact amount.
Mark Up
This marks up the WIP to meet the pre-bill balance, this will allow you to close off the pre-bill.
Mark down
This will mark the WIP to meet the pre-bill balance, this will allow you to close off the pre-bill.
Use the exact amount
This will allow you to assign the exact amount of WIP to the pre-bill and will leave a pre-bill balance of the difference between the WIP amount and the pre-bill.
Now you will be able to start using the Pre-bill function in your own environment.
Where to next?
What other features does this relate to?