You can use Express Accounts to bill your customers by creating professional-looking invoices.Create a New Invoice Click the Sales menu and select New Invoice or click the Invoice icon on the toolbar of the Sales tab, and the New Invoice dialog will open. Create a sales order from an existing quote, order, or draft invoice - From the Use drop-menu in the upper left, select either Quote, Order, or Draft Invoice. This will open a list of the specified records. Select the quote, order, or draft invoice, and click the select icon in the toolbar. The details of the record will appear on the invoice form. You can make edits to the information or items, and then save the invoice. Create a new invoice - Begin filling out the invoice by selecting the customer's name from the Invoice Customer drop-down box, and their billing and shipping address will be filled out for you. If you are creating an invoice for a new customer, simply type their name into the Invoice Customer field, and fill in their address. Enter items or services into the invoice by clicking anywhere inside the items list to create a new item entry. Click within the Item or Description cell and use the drop-menu to quickly locate an item by its code or description. For new items, enter the details into the invoice, and the details will be added to your items list for you, and will be available the next time you want to create a quote, order, or invoice. Enter the quantity, and the totals will update automatically. Save the invoice by clicking Record at the bottom of the screen. For more saving options, including Record and Print, click the triangle on the right side of the Record button. For more detail about all the fields on the New Invoice dialog, view the New Invoice topic in the Screen References section of this manual. Create a Recurring Invoice Schedule If an invoice needs to be sent on a regular basis, Express Accounts allows you to automate part of the process by creating recurring invoice schedules. To create a recurring invoice schedule, fill out the invoice as usual, then select Save as Recurring from the drop-menu at the bottom. This brings up the Recurring Invoice Schedule dialog. Fill out when the first invoice should be scheduled, how often the invoice should be sent, what action to take to save, print, or send the invoice, and then click OK to save the schedule. When a recurring invoice is due to be sent, a Run Recurring Invoices link will appear in the ToDo list in the Explorer bar. Click this link to have Express Accounts run all recurring invoices that are scheduled to go out. You can view a list of all recurring invoices by selecting Recurring Invoices from the View menu. From the Recurring Invoices list, you can select a recurring invoice and edit the details of the invoice, or edit the recurring schedule. For more details about filling out a recurring invoice schedule, see the Recurring Invoice Schedule topic in the Screen References section of this manual. View Existing Invoices To view a list of all invoices, click the View icon in the toolbar and select Invoices. By default, the list displays recorded invoices only. To view all invoices, or just draft invoices, use the drop-menu labeled Display Invoices to select. For more details about the invoices list, see the Invoices List topic in the Screen References section of this manual. Unpaid Invoices When the time comes to contact overdue customers, you can use the Unpaid Accounts Report or the Customer List. Unpaid Accounts Report - To access the Unpaid Accounts Report, click the Reports tab and select Unpaid Accounts Report from the main window. You can sort the list by customer or due date to give you a good idea of who is behind on payments. Customer List - To access the customer list, click the View icon on the toolbar and select Customers. The customer list displays what each customer's balance is, when their earliest due date is, and what their last invoice number was. Send Automatic Statements You can send automatic monthly statements to customers who are overdue. This is done by clicking Options on the toolbar, then going to the Company tab and configuring the Automatic Statements section. Receive Payment for Invoices To apply a payment toward an invoice, from the Sales tab click the Payment button on the toolbar. This opens the payment dialog. Select a customer from the Customer drop-menu, and their unpaid invoices will appear in the Invoices section of this dialog. Any amount entered in the Amount field will be applied to the invoices in the order they are due. Note that the invoices section is for your reference only. Express Accounts applies payments toward a customer's account, not to specific invoices. For more details about the payment dialog, view the Payment topic in the Screen References section of this manual. See also: |