Skimmer Billing - How to Generate Invoices

To learn how to generate invoices with Skimmer Billing, see the video below. Or, if you prefer, scroll past the video to view our step-by-step text instructions.

 


Step-by-step instructions . . .

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You’ve done the work, and now you need to get paid. Well, Skimmer Billing makes it easy. Here’s how to generate and send invoices. On the website, start by going to Billing and then Invoice Generator. The first screen is where you’ll enter all the parameters for what you want to bill for.
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Select your Bill From and Bill To dates, which tells Skimmer what service dates to gather your work from. This will default to first and last day of previous month, but you can change these dates to whatever you want.

Choose your invoice date, which will default to today, but you can select another if you like.

The due date will display automatically based on your default settings, which we review in another video. But if you need something different this time, you can change it here for the invoices you’re about to generate.

Message on Invoice will show the default message you already set up, which we covered in another video. Again, though, you can change it here for these invoices if you want to. Changing this message here won’t change the default, just what’s displayed on the invoices you’re about to generate.

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Next, choose what you want to include in these invoices. Regular pool service and related items, work orders that haven’t been invoiced, or both.

Note that any invoice which includes a work order won’t be auto-paid. That applies to the work order itself and any associated installed items. Since work orders are typically regarded as non-routine, and have the potential to be expensive, this gives your customer the opportunity to review those charges.

For the next option, select whether you want your customers to receive a combined invoice, or whether you want to generate a separate invoice for every service location.

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Finally, select which customers you want to invoice. Here you can choose to invoice all customers who were serviced during the billing period, customers with a certain tag or set of tags, or even one specific customer if you want. These options can be useful if, for instance, you have customers on different billing schedules such as biweekly versus monthly.

When you’ve chosen your parameters, click Continue, which will take you to more detailed screens for generating your invoices.

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The first tab is Pool Service, which will help you invoice for regular service stops – those typically weekly or biweekly maintenance visits. When service is rendered within the billing period, it will appear here. At the top, you’ll see the defaults you chose in Settings for pool service line items. We cover that in another video. You can adjust them here if you like, without changing the default, and choose whether to display service dates on the invoice.

Customize for Each Location is there in case you want to set a custom service name and description for a customer’s specific service locations. For instance, maybe they have multiple service locations, and you want to name each service after its location. Or you can leave it blank to go with the default.

When you’re ready, click Save & Continue.

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Now you’ve progressed to the Installed Items tab. These are the items installed or otherwise sold to customers during this billing period. Note that these are related to service only. Items installed as part of a work order will appear on the Work Orders tab.

Skimmer will automatically include your prices and taxable status for Products. However, parts, bulk chemicals, and items listed as Other do not have prices or taxable status associated with them, so you’ll need to add that information here. You can also change the name, description, quantity, unit price, and taxable status for any item on this list, no matter what you’ve set as the default. As you add information or make changes, you’ll see the Before Tax Total update. Note that you can also choose to Exclude an item, which means you don’t want to bill for it or have it included as a line item on the invoice.

Once you’re all set, click Save & Continue.

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Next up is the Work Orders tab, if you’ve chosen to include them. Here you’ll see all the work orders completed during your billing period. This screen gives you all the relevant information at a glance, including name of the customer, service location, line item name and description, the date it was completed, number of items installed, combined tax rate, taxable status, default work order price, and the current total payment due. Since we’ve just arrived on this tab, this total may change if we modify any line items. We show you in other videos how to choose default settings for what will appear here. But once you’re here, if you need to make changes from those defaults, you can do so.

You can also see any items installed for each work order. They’ll appear right below the labor line item. You can tell the labor line item because it has a little square with a color that matches your chosen color for that work order type. Below that, the line items with a color circle are your installed items. For these, you’ll start with all the line item information you’ve set by default, but again you can change anything that you need to. If you make any pricing changes, you’ll also update the Before Tax Total.

When you have everything set, click Save & Continue.

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Now you’re on the Invoices Preview tab. You can see an overhead view of all the invoices you’re preparing to send out. If there are any you don’t want to send, you can just uncheck the box on the left.

You can also review the details of individual invoices. Choose one and click Details, and you’ll be taken to a screen where you can see every element of this invoice, from customer information to line items to total amount due. The invoice status even lets you know that you’re just looking at a preview because this invoice hasn’t actually been sent yet. This is useful for a final review before sending your bill to the customer, to make sure for instance you haven’t missed adding a price for an item or service.

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If you spot a mistake that you need to correct, just click Invoices Preview and then navigate to the appropriate tab. There you’ll make your corrections and Save, and that new information will be added to the invoice.

If you want to do the same with the next invoice in line, just click Next and you’ll go right to it.

When you’re ready to go, click Invoices Preview to go back to the final tab. You see the count of how many invoices you’re sending, any taxes being collected, and the total amount due for all invoices combined.

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The Generate Invoices button is multi-function. You can just click the main button to generate the invoices. Or you can click the dropdown arrow on the right and access two possible actions - generate the invoices but don’t send them yet, or generate and send right now.

If you choose Generate and Send, Skimmer will create the invoices, send them to your customers, and change the status of all those invoices to Sent. If you choose to only generate the invoices, Skimmer will create them as a draft and send them to the Invoices page. We cover all the functions of the Invoices page in another video.

So that’s an overview of how to generate invoices with Skimmer Billing.