Invoice aggregation for Clients

Step 1: Aggregate the Invoices

To combine two or more invoices in the system for a client, hover your mouse over My Company in the Menu Bar and then click on Invoice Production - Clients in the provided menu.

Enter an Effective Date Range or Financial Period and click on Ok. This can be done by clicking on the Calendar Icons or by clicking on the Pick Period drop-down menu and choosing an option. 

Any invoices with an Effective Date in the entered range or selected period will appear as shown below. Here you will see the current status of each invoice, the cost, effective date, and additional information. Next, you will need to click on Aggregate now... This will produce a single document for each client displayed for the configured time period. 

The following pop-up window will appear. This will show the total number of invoices to be aggregated, which does not include any already aggregated invoices or any documents that have been flagged as not required.

If single invoices are present in the displayed time period, you have the option to aggregate them as well. To do so, click on the checkbox next to Aggregate even if there is just one invoice for a billing company. When finished, click on Ok.

Once the invoices have been aggregated, the screen will appear as shown below. As you can see, now only one invoice exists for the client (Marketing Gurus in this example). In the Agg. Column, it now displays Aggregation and the dollar amount of the two invoices has been combined. 

Step 2: Approve the Invoices

After the invoices have been aggregated for one or more clients within the configured date range, you will need to continue to Step 2 - Approving the Invoices. To do so, click on Approve at the top of the screen.

The Aggregation Column will now show Yes. If previous invoices have been approved, they will appear here as well. To only see the ones that need approval, use the Filter Menu located above the Client Column. Use the checkboxes to select specific documents for approval or simply click on Approve to approve all invoice documents.  

If the settings have not been enabled for invoice auto numbering, you will see the message below next to Invoice number/date. It is recommended to configure these settings prior to approving invoices.

This can be done by clicking on Configure Auto Numbers, which will open a new tab in your browser for viewing and changing these settings. 

Next, click on Edit and then scroll down to the Client Invoices section.

Here, you will need to enable Auto-assign invoice number/date upon user click and Auto-assign client invoice number/date upon status change, as shown below.

Then type in a format for the automatic invoice numbering. If you need ideas for how this is done, click on Info next to the Number Format drop-down menu. Once finished, scroll back to the top and click on Save.

You may need to click on Cancel in the pop-up window below and then click on Approve again for the change to take effect. Once this has been done the approval window will appear as shown below.

If Create and attach invoice documents is chosen, a new document will automatically be created and attached for each invoice. You may also check the box next to Replace existing attachments to overwrite any existing attachments. Then click on Ok. 

Now the Status Column will show Invoice Approved. New icons will also appear to show that it is a new invoice and for viewing the approved document.

Step 3: Distribute the Invoices

The final step involves distributing any approved invoices to the clients. This can be done by clicking on Distribute on the Client Invoice Production Tab. 

Several options are provided for distributing your invoice documents. They may be downloaded and printed, emailed to the client, etc. Currently this invoice is configured to be emailed and printed as noted by the Blue Circles under the appropriate columns. 

Changing Flags

If you want to change these settings, click on Change Flags... above the Client Column. Here you can change the content style by ticking one of the provided radials. The Send by Email and Print out options may also be changed to one of the following: 

• Required - The email and/or print out must be completed for the invoice to be considered finished in the system.
• Not Required - One or both are not required to finish the invoice.
• Mark as Sent (Email) - Mark the email for the invoice as being sent. This is done automatically when the distribution is completed. 
• Mark as Printed (Print Out) - Mark the print out for the invoice as being printed. This is done automatically when the distribution is completed. 
• Leave Unchanged - Use default settings for invoice distribution.

Click on the radials to make or change the current selection. Then click on Ok in the pop-up window.

The information will immediately be reflected for the invoice document. In the example below, Style B will be used and only email is required:

Distributing Documents

You may also click on the Client or Invoice Number column for the appropriate document to see additional information and view or modify the invoice. Once finished, click on Distribute... (or Distribute, selected...) to distribute the required invoice documents. 

A pop-up window will appear. Here you may perform many actions for distributing the documents including: email, printing, and exporting the selected invoices. We recommend leaving the Create Excel/PDF print versions option enabled. 

An option is also provided for re-creating and replacing any existing print versions. This is disabled by default and you will need to check the box next to the option to do so.

When finished with the needed distribution tasks, click on the X in the upper right corner to close this window. The following choices can be used to distribute one or many invoices to your clients.

• Prepare Download - This option can be used to download and print the invoice. Click on Prepare Download and then Finish in the prompt window. Then click on Download Zip File. An option is provided and automatically enabled for excluding any invoices that do not require printing. To disable this option, tick the checkbox.
   
• Send Emails - This option can be used to send emails to the client(s) for each selected invoice. Click on Send Emails and then Finish in the prompt window. Options are provided for excluding any invoices that are not marked for email and any that have already been successfully sent. You can also enter a test email and have the documents sent prior to distributing them to the client. 
  
• Download XML - This option can be used to export the documents in XML format for use within another application or for other purposes. Just click on Download XML or Configure Export Formats to make changes prior to downloading the file. 
  

Status Changes

Another option resides next to the distribute button and can be used to change the status of the document. Click on Finished... to view these options.

Then tick the radial for the desired option in the provided pop-up window and click on Ok when finished. An invoice can be marked as sent, paid, or switched back to approved in this window.

Sent invoices will have an Invoice Sent status, as shown below:

Paid invoices will have an Invoice Paid status and , as shown below: