I have some great clients that all but require me to allow them to pre-pay for my services. It is easier for them and right now is perfect for me (love the cash flow). However the one area I have been struggling with Invoice Ninja is this exact thing. Retainers.
The best way I can think to describe what I want is “legal retainers” where you pay a lawyer X amount and they bill services against that until the balance is $0 and you pay them another.
So far I have come-up with a way that sort of works, but from my understanding leaves things “messy” from the paper-trail point of view.
Requirements/Goals:
create pre-paid retainer quote/invoice in Invoice Ninja to be sent to Client for processing in their Accounting System
Track the process from quote to revenue in Invoice Ninja
Apply future invoices against the retainer
What I have figured out so far, but not complete since it leaves some "left-overs"
Create Quote for Client: call it “Service Retainer” {done form: Quotes section of Invoice Ninja}
Send to Client for Approval {done from: Quotes section of Invoice Ninja}
Client Approves and sends payment (check/ACH/whatever) {done from: Client Portal/Email/Whatever}
[???what do I do with the Quote?; leave it alone, covert to invoice and do something with Credits???]
I create a payment for the amount client {in Payments section of Invoice Ninja}
Generate and apply future invoices to that payment {in Invoice and Payments section of Invoice Ninja}
So I am stuck on what to do with that Quote, I don’t want to leave it hanging out there, it would be nice to track Quote to $$.
I’d love some direction or links to others, couldn’t find much on Google/YouTube.
I am stuck on thinking I need to use Credits, but that’s where I get all jumbled, I thought I had it figured out but then ended up with negative balances on the credit when I don’t apply an invoice that takes up the whole retainer.
Retainers just sits out side our current scope i think.
I think a possible solution here is to create a Payment that is unapplied for the total, and then apply these amounts to subsequent invoices as they are generated.
So the workflow would be:
Retainer Invoice (single or recurring) for $x
On payment creates an unapplied payment for $x
Until this functionality could be built out, the only way to achieve the same result would take a bit of manual work and would not be that nice of a workflow ie.
Generate invoice / recurring invoice for retainer amount.
On payment, DELETE the associated invoice + payment and create a new Payment for that amount which is unapplied.
I haven’t figured out a better way that I like yet. It can sorta be done, but I wouldn’t want to do it regularly/at volume because it takes extra steps to sorta smooth out. It doesn’t come up for me a ton, yet, and every time it does I stare at the page a while trying to decide how I want to do it. Sometimes the retainer might come in without my having sent something via InvoiceNinja, and in that case I can add it as a Credit. Otherwise I’ve just used a regular invoice for the retainer, then applied that money in a new draft invoice for them so I don’t have an odd calculation by generating an actual “Credit” which, I think, would make it look like I’d been double paid – once for the invoice, and separately once again for the Credit. But like I say, at this point I haven’t had to do much with true pre-paid retainers and haven’t played around with many options of how to do it…tho I perhaps would require retainers more if it was easier to manage, heh.
I would request it as a new feature at some point. Perhaps by some modification of how “Credit” or “Quote” works, or a new separate category? A unique Product type which can go on an invoice, but it’s “Payment” is applied directly as a “Credit” with appropriate background calculation? I dunno.
The ability for customers to prepay for services on the Client Portal does not solve the problem of being able to invoice customers for future services and track those future rendered services internally. We need a way to apply and track time to an existing Paid/Partial/Sent Invoice.
My workaround is doing the job, but is less than ideal: 1) Create a project called ‘Block Time [start date]’, with the proper amount of Budgeted hours. 2) Invoice that project as a service. 3) Add tasks to that project until the Total hours match the Budgeted hours.
Invoices cannot or should not be changed after being Paid/Partial. I suggest there be a way on the Client Portal and/or on client Statements to show what Tasks have been applied to what Projects, or better, what Tasks/Projects have been applied to what Invoices AFTER an Invoice has been Sent/Partial/Paid.
As this has become a common request, and since you have made steps towards resolution, I think it would be appropriate to create an official Issue where all other Issues or forum posts can be pointed to in an effort to track progress and discuss potential workflows and/or workarounds.
As always thank you very much for your time and energy on Invoice Ninja. I am a very happy paying customer and continue to recommend your product!