I have only recently starting using quotes in a way that allows clients to accept them, pay partial amounts, then pay the final invoice later. I have a few roadblocks with the way that quotes are working now, and wanted to ask some questions.
1.) First off, “Partial Due Date” is not referenced in the docs, anywhere. Only the partial amount. This appears to be the due date for when the partial payment must be paid by. It seems that this has to be before the “Valid Until” date (it also cannot be the same as the valid until date)
This is pretty strange. Why would I be forced to make the partial due date before the Valid Until date? Now you open up a scenario where the partial payment is already past due, but the quote is still valid and can be confirmed. How dies this present to the user? They can confirm/accept the quote but cannot pay the partial deposit? If anything, the partial payment should be a due date in the future, after the valid until date, or due at the time the quote is confirmed (in order to confirm it). Neither of these are possible, I get the error
"422: Unprocessable Content • The given data was invalid.
• The partial due date must be a date before due date.
• The due date must be a date after partial due date."
when trying to set the partial due date equal to or beyond the valid until date.
2.) While that is frustrating (and makes no functional sense to me), I have sent quotes and just put the partial due date the day before the valid until date. My client will confirm the quote, pay the partial payment, and then the Quote shows as “converted” and there is the an invoice automatically generated that shows up under “upcoming invoices” and is displayed as “partial” with a due date inherited from the default payment terms of the client it was generated for (it appears). It also appears (after checking the linked email address’ sent folder) that the invoice email is never sent to the client. So even if this behavior made sense, I would have to manually remember to send the initial invoice email despite it being in my Dashboard under “upcoming invoices” (which typically would be all my invoices that are waiting to be paid, the ball is in the client’s course so to speak).
Why is this automatically converted into an invoice that is now on the client’s radar with a due date when the project hasn’t even commenced let alone completed? Now I have to continuously push back this due date, until the project is completed and I can invoice the remainder, or cancel the quote and generate a new one later. This really doesn’t make any sense to me, I can’t imagine there are many lines of work where the moment that your client confirms the quotes and pays a partial deposit, they are now on the hook for the rest at XYZ due date. The project hasn’t even started.
3.) Furthermore, I was surprised to see that there is no project created that is linked to that invoice that I can log hours under, which is pretty problematic. Now I need to create a project to track that work under (even if it’s not billable), and the invoice that was automatically created will not be linked to that project in the same fashion that it would be if I used the “invoice project” button on a project that I created.
I have certainly been wrong and misunderstood features in the past, so I am hoping to gain a little bit of clarity here to help me successfully use this feature as I expand my business and offer fixed price quoting. I love the fact that clients can go into their portal and see their quotes, and accept it right there. I do not want to lose that ability. But it seems pretty cumbersome to have to delete the converted quote and then manually track partial payments on projects just to accommodate what I think would be the day 1 use case here.
Thanks in advance!