A retainer agreement is a long-term work-for-hire contract between a company and a client that retains ongoing services from you and provides you with a stable amount of payments. It’s different from other pricing models in the way that the client or customer pays in advance for professional work to be determined later.
To improve the management of your retainer budget projects, we are introducing the ability to create invoices for retainer periods in advance.
This article covers
- Creating invoices from Retainer Tracking
- Creating invoices for multiple periods
- Managing time registrations for advanced period invoices
- Locking periods with pre-created invoices
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Creating an invoice from Retainer Tracking
In Forecast, users can create invoices from Invoice Creation, All Invoices, within a specific project and directly from a retainer tracking period.
To create an invoice from a retainer tracking period
- Click Projects in the top bar.
- Select All Projects.
- Open the project you wish to create an invoice for.
- In the left side panel, click Retainer Tracking.
- Identify the period for which you need to invoice.
- From the three dot menu on the right side of the period, select Create Invoice.
- The Create invoices modal will open populated with the following detail:
- Project Name, the name of the project
- Invoice Name, the name of the period.
- Quantity as 1.
- Unit Price, the Period Target.
- Invoice date, the last day in the period.
- Due Date, 30 days from period end date.
- Optional: Add Tax, change the invoice Currency and modify any of the above values, if needed.
- Click Create invoices.
- A popup will appear indicating the invoice was created successfully.
- Click Stay here to remain on Retainer Tracking.
- Or, click Go to Invoicing to and you will be redirected to the Project's Invoicing page.
- From here you can manage the invoice, update the status, export to an integrated accounting and billing platform such as QuickBooks or Xero or apply any payments received.
Creating invoices for multiple periods
Within Retainer Tracking, you now have the option to pre-create period invoices, or create invoices for multiple periods at once. Creating period invoices in advance does not lock future periods, impact future rollover options or cause conflicts in time registered to the period.
To create invoices for multiple periods
- Click Projects in the top bar.
- Select All Projects.
- Open the project you wish to create an invoice for.
- In the left side panel, click Retainer Tracking.
- Tick the box next to each period name for the periods you wish to create invoices for.
- In the bulk actions menu ribbon, select Create Invoices.
- The Create invoices modal will open populated with the following detail for each period selected.
- Project Name, the name of the project.
- Invoice Name, the name of the selected periods.
- Quantity is 1.
- Unit Price, the Period Target.
- Invoice date, the last day in the period.
- Due Date, 30 days from period end date.
- Optional: Add Tax, change the invoice Currency and modify any of the above values, if needed.
Note: If tax is set in the top cell, it will apply to the total amount of each invoice.
- Click Create invoices.
- A popup will appear indicating the invoices were created successfully.
- Click Stay here to remain on Retainer Tracking.
- Or, click Go to Invoicing to and you will be redirected to the Project's Invoicing page.
- From here you can manage the invoice, update the status, export to an integrated accounting and billing platform such as QuickBooks or Xero or apply any payments received.
Managing time registrations on advanced period invoices
When time is registered to a retainer budget project, it associates the date of the time registration with the dates assigned to the retainer period. Creating advanced period invoices does not impact time registered to the project or the period. Registering time on periods where invoices have been created in advance will not trigger conflicts. Once a period has been locked, it will no longer accept time registrations. Any time registered to the period will appear as a conflict to be managed.
To understand and learn how to manage time registration conflicts on locked retainer tracking periods, see Overview of Retainer Budget type.
Locking periods with pre-created invoices
Creating invoices in advance of locking periods does not impact the period. Once a period's target has been reached or its end date has passed, the period can be locked. Locking a period will trigger any applicable rollover options. Once a period is locked time entries cannot be changed. Any new time registered on dates within the locked period will appear as conflicts.
To learn more about locking retainer tracking periods, rollover options and managing conflicts, see Overview of Retainer Budget type.
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