Billing - Invoice Categories and Service Types

Tiers:  All tiers

Skimmer's invoice categories and pool service types work together to give you finer control over how your business revenue is organized, reported, and synced to QuickBooks Online (QBO). 

Invoice Categories

Invoice categories let you define custom revenue buckets for your company by grouping billable items such as products, work order types, and dosages.  You can use the default invoice category as well as create custom categories.

Why use custom invoice categories?

If you run distinct sides of your business, for example, a repair division and a recurring service division, invoice categories let you measure each one separately. Instead of seeing all revenue lumped together in the default invoice category, you can see exactly how much your repair work brings in versus your weekly service routes.

Setting up custom invoice categories

  1. From the Invoice Settings page, click the Add button in the Invoice Categories section.
  2. Create a category for each revenue type in your business (for example, Repair and Service).
  3. Assign invoice categories to:
    • Products (Settings > Products)
    • Work Order Types (Settings > Work Order Types)
    • Dosages (Settings > Readings & Dosages)
    • Pool Service Types (Settings > Invoicing)
Now, any invoiced product, work order, or dosage contributes to its assigned invoice category's totals in your reports.  If you don't update a product, work order type, or dosage invoice category, it continues to be included in the default invoice category.
Invoice categories are not displayed on customer invoices.  They are internal classifications used for revenue tracking.
Note:  You cannot delete an invoice category that is in use by active invoice line items. 

Pool Service Types

Pool service types describe the kind of work done at a pool and are displayed on invoices as line-item names.  You can use the default pool service type as well as create custom pool service types, each with its own description and invoice category.

Why use custom pool service types?

Pool service types allow you to track revenue and route it into specific invoice categories.  For example:
  • Assign Chemicals Only and Residential pool service types to your Service invoice category
  • Create a Commercial pool service type and assign it to a Commercial invoice category
With this setup, every commercial customer's recurring service automatically flows into your commercial revenue bucket in Skimmer reporting and in QBO.

Assigning a pool service type to a customer

You assign service types at the service location level. 
  1. From the customer profile, click the Edit option in the Service Location section.
  2. Click the Pool Service Item Name field and type a custom pool service type or select a pool service type from the list.
If a service location has a custom pool service line item, it remains in place unless you choose a new service type. For any location without a specific assignment, Skimmer uses the default service type specified in the Pool Service Item Name field (Invoice Settings page, Defaults section).

Reporting

Once you set up invoice categories and pool service types, the following Skimmer reports use this information to give you insight into invoiced and paid amounts:
  • Sales by Category - a breakdown of revenue streams across service types, installed items, and other categories based on invoiced amounts.
  • Income by Category - a breakdown of revenue streams across service types, installed items, and other categories based on paid amounts.

QuickBooks Online (QBO) integration

Invoice categories and pool service types unlock more precise QBO account mapping. 
In your QBO integration settings, the Linked Invoice Categories option allows you to link each invoice category to a specific QBO income account. The Linked Pool Service option allows you to link each pool service type to a specific QBO income account. 
Recommended setup: Most businesses have one primary income account that covers most of their revenue. Use that account as your default, then map your other invoice categories and pool service types to their appropriate QBO accounts individually.

Product imports and invoice categories

When you import products from QBO, Skimmer reads each product's income account and creates a matching invoice category automatically. This means your imported products have an invoice category in Skimmer as soon as the import completes.

Inventory category updates

  • Account mapping change - When you change an invoice category's QBO account mapping, Skimmer automatically queues for resync all products, work order types, and dosages in that category that have a QBO Item ID. The resync updates the income account on each item in QBO to match the new mapping. This happens asynchronously via the standard QBO sync queue.
  • Invoice category deletion - When you delete an invoice category, Skimmer clears the category assignment for all items in that category. If the deleted category had a QBO account mapping, those items are queued for resync to revert to the default income account. The category is soft-deleted and historical data is preserved.
    Note: You cannot delete an invoice category that is in use by active invoice line items.
  • Item category change - When you move an item to a different invoice category, Skimmer queues it for QBO resync during the next save. The income account in QBO will update to match the new category's mapping (or default if no mapping).

How invoice categories and pool service types work together

Invoice categories and pool service types are designed to complement each other:
You want to... Use...
Split repair vs. service revenue in reports  Invoice Categories on Work Order Types
Separate commercial from residential service revenue Pool Service Types + Invoice Categories
Map different revenue streams to different QBO accounts Invoice Categories → QBO account mapping
Ensure consistent pool service descriptions across your team Pool Service Types

Tips for getting started

  • Start with your categories. Create your invoice categories first, since you reference them when setting up service types and work order types.
  • Use a default for your largest revenue stream. Map your most common income type to your QBO default account, then handle the others individually.
  • Audit your work order types. After creating categories, review each work order type and confirm it's assigned to the right one.
  • Check existing service locations. Service locations without a type assignment use the default.  Review your commercial accounts first if you want to separate them immediately.