Billing and invoicing
Billing is where consulting firms lose the month.
Time approved in one system, rate cards in a spreadsheet, caps somebody remembers, a change order in an email thread — and a finance lead rebuilding all of it by hand before anything goes out the door. This is the part of the product that exists so none of that happens twice.
What an invoice is made of
An invoice is assembled here rather than typed, because only this system knows which hours a manager approved, at whose rate, under which billing rule and against which change order.
What you can do with it
Your own invoice templates
Invoice layouts are yours to design — the sections, the columns, the wording and the notes — and a default can be set per client. Customer statements have their own layouts, and the emails invoices go out with have their own templates.
Consolidated invoicing
One invoice can bill several engagements for the same client, each line carrying its own project. A client with five active projects gets one document a month instead of five, and your reporting still knows which engagement earned what.
Sent from inside the app
Invoices generate as PDF and email to the client over your own SMTP server, with a preview before anything goes and a record of what was sent. They export as XLSX and CSV too.
Overdue payment alerts
The alerting engine watches days past due on each client's oldest unpaid invoice and delivers it on the schedule you set, as individual alerts or a digest. Late-payment interest can be applied as one consolidated charge or a dated line per day.
Caps that actually stop you
Billing limits hold the funding a client has released, and each new purchase order is a revision stating a new total rather than a delta — so the ceiling in force is a number you can check against the paper by eye, and a T&M engagement cannot quietly bill past it.
Billing rules, in priority order
Time and materials or fixed fee, with rules resolved first-match-wins so one engagement can price a named person differently from their role without two sets of rates disagreeing.
Credit memos, payments, statements
Credits come off a balance the way cash does, and are carried alongside rather than absorbed, so a reader can see why a balance sits below the invoice total. Payments are recorded and applied; retainers are held and drawn down.
Multi-currency that holds still
The rate and the rate date are stored on the record rather than applied at read time, so a historical invoice does not move when FX does. VAT and sales tax carry on invoice lines and on expense receipts for input-tax reclaim.
Revenue recognition that posts
Twelve recognition methods, and a recognized period posts as one balanced journal entry carrying project, department, class and location on every line. An unbalanced journal is refused here rather than by your ledger.
What it deliberately does not do
Worth saying plainly, because finding out later is worse than reading it now.
It does not take the money
Payments are recorded here and applied against invoices. The money moves through your bank or your accounting system, and nothing here ever marks an invoice paid on its own — on NetSuite installs, paid and overdue flow back from the ledger instead.
No Word output, no e-fax
Invoices go out as PDF by email, or export as XLSX and CSV. If your clients need a Word document or a fax, this is not the system for that part of the job.
It is not your ledger
AP, AR and the general ledger belong in an accounting system. This decides what to bill and assembles the invoice; where there is a NetSuite connection, the invoice crosses and NetSuite owns the receivable from that point.
How invoices reach NetSuite — which records cross, in which direction, and what deliberately does not.
Questions
Can one invoice cover several projects for the same client?
Yes — consolidated invoicing is a setting. With it on, a single invoice bills several engagements for one client and every line carries its own project, so the client gets one document a month instead of one per project and your reporting still knows which engagement earned what.
Can we design our own invoice template?
Yes. Invoice layouts are user-defined: the sections, the columns, the wording and the notes are all configurable, and a default layout can be set per client. Customer statements have their own separate layouts, and the emails invoices are sent with have their own templates.
How do invoices reach the client?
As a PDF, emailed from inside the app over your own SMTP server, with a preview before it goes and a record of what was sent. Invoices also export as XLSX and CSV. We do not produce MS Word output and there is no e-fax — if either is a requirement, say so on a call and we will tell you straight whether this fits.
Does it chase overdue payments?
It alerts you about them. The alerting engine tracks days past due on each client's oldest unpaid invoice and delivers that on a schedule you set, as individual alerts or as a digest. Late-payment interest can be applied where your terms allow it, either as one consolidated charge or as one dated line per day.
Do you take the payment?
No, and we would rather be plain about it. Payments are recorded here and applied against invoices; the money itself moves through your accounting system or your bank. Nothing here ever marks an invoice paid on its own — on NetSuite installs, paid and overdue status flows back from the ledger.
What happens when a fixed-fee engagement changes?
A change order is a first-class record with its own approval: it names who at the client authorized it and against which paper, takes effect on its own date, and snapshots a baseline at approval. The contract value every later invoice is measured against moves with it, and the figures computed before it can still be re-derived from the plan as it stood.
14 days, self-serve, nothing charged. Send three of your own project names and they will be loaded before a call.