Repeat Billing

[jonny_b]

Hi,

Does anyone have a way to solve repeat billing for customers?
ie. customer pays monthly for a service?

I'm looking for an easier way to track who is to be billed....

Also...if not, is there a way to have a customised report which will extract customer names who have a custom field called say 'monthly' or the like?

Cheers,

[jbprincipato]

one suggestion is to set up a ship via field to be reoccurring services then sor a report on the bills that were shipped via reoccurring services. I don't know of an easy way to bill people for monthly services other than setting up a separate spreadsheet to manage the people getting monthly services and reocording the start date, period for billing, amount to be billed in a period and number of billable events to be billed in a period. From that sheet you can manually bill for the service deducting any missed chargable events.

John

[jonny_b]

Thanks John!

The spreadsheet idea was what i was trying to get away from

I'll post back if i get anywhere !

Cheers,

[gibbo]

You guys obviously haven't used the memorised transactions feature in QuickBooks.
For monthly invoicing, go to Lists / Memorised Transactions and make a new Group. Call it "Monthly", make it a standing order, enter "monthly" in the "How Often" box and set the date you want the next one to occur. Save the Transaction.
Now enter a transaction for the cutomer. before saving it, go to Edit / Memorise Invoice and click into "With transactions in Group". Enter "Monthly" in the "Group Name". save the transaction. Now alter the customer name in the transaction to another and repeat the process. etc for each customer. When complete, simply do not save the transaction you have been using. They are now ready for automatic entry each month.
If you prefer, you can use "Don't Remind Me" or "Remind Me" instead of automatically entering the transaction.

[jonny_b]

Obviously

Cheers for that, much appreciated!

[ricelijud]

Has anyone figured out how to create a custom filed for Service Date and have it change automatically during invoice generation? For example, I want to bill one month in advance for a re-curring service. I would setup a memorized group that would invoice monthly to take care of automatic billing.

However, I'm looking to see if a "formula" can be added or a script to allow me to set the Service Date 1 month ahead of the invoice date.

I have over 300 re-curring invoices each month and have to manually update the Service Date field. Any help would be appreciated.

[gibbo]

If only.......
We have addressed this in Australia by writing a small QuickBooks add-on that allows you to filter your Customer list (eg Customer types), a pre-defined template and the info you need at the time of entry (date, starting inv. number) and writes an IIF file for import into QuickBooks containing a transaction for each customer. It could be adapted to the US with just a change to the template. We have been able to automate the process using a software developers kit, but ours is not compatible with the US. We will shortly have one very similar to the US and we can then make the process seamless. At present, it requires exporting the customer lista and manually importing an IIF file. But that is a lot better than doing all the Invoices separately. If you are interested, contact us at admin@ozbizsolutions.com.au

[Bushwack]

I had a similar question back in mid-March (here's the thread: <http://www.quickbooksusers.com/.foru...&threadid=3602> I hope that is linkable. If not, copy and paste.

What worked best for me was to create 12 separate memorized transactions per client (one for each mont to re-occur annually). More info available at the link.

[gibbo]

Memorised transactions is ok when you do not have too many, or the task is not too complicated. We are currently producing a utility for a Jewish Synagogue in Perth Western Australia to bill people for their seats. There have different rates for men, women and children, different rates for the row they sit in and concessions for pensioners and students, as well as billing "Associates" who pay for a seat but are not actually allocated a real seat. The task of writing Invoices was taking days. We have set up Custom fields into which info can be entered and use this to write an IIF file. eg. A27P, A28S could be Row A, seat 27, Pensioner concession and Row A, Seat 28 Student. We then look up the item list (Using Barcode Field for Concession identification) and write the transactions. They will be able to produce invoices for everyone in a couple of minutes. There is definitely sometimes a need for outside preparation of Invoices. It can save time and ensure that Invoices are correctly written when the task is just too much to do manually.

[CharlieA]

What is an IIF file?

[gibbo]

An IIF file is a format that Intuit have defined that allows you to write transactions that canbe imported into QuickBooks. This is being superceded by the use of xml.

[crazysonoran]

ricelijud,

You could setup another "term" that is Net 60 or something like that so it is due 2 months from the invoice date. Then memorize those transactions so they recur every month.

Dave

[CharlieA]

Originally posted by gibbo
An IIF file is a format that Intuit have defined that allows you to write transactions that canbe imported into QuickBooks. This is being superceded by the use of xml.

Sounds like a database with predefined fields, etc. How do I find out more?

[adamshaw]

Hi there you will need to enter a memorised transaction:

to do these, select an invoice you normally send out.

then when it is finished and about to be sent:

right click and select, memorise invoice.

you will then recieve a shedule memorise transaction box, if you then select the standing order radio button.

then follow the other boxes,

how often, monthly/weekly/last friday of the month etc

and then select the start date.

when this start date next arrives the customer will automatically be billed.

i hope this helps!!

adam shaw
Head of Finance
We solve IT LTD

adam.shaw@wesolveit.co.uk

[CharlieA]

Adam,

From past posts it sounds like gibbo is setting up memorized transactions and then uploading changes to certain fields in future periods instead of making changes in QuickBooks.

Maybe I have it wrong or these Ruby shoes I keep taping together aren't working quite the way I hoped. "I hope there is an easier way to do this. I hope there is an easier way to do this...".