Within your Billing module, there is a Preparation sub-view.
This sub-view allows you to:
Find all your items pending billing at a glance
Efficiently handle various alerts
Invoice in one click thanks to the basket system
The Preparation view is currently available in beta test!
This feature is available with limited access and must be activated by Boond. If you wish to obtain it, you can click directly on our roadmap to apply.
Updates may be made throughout the testing phase:
Your experience and feedback will help us improve and adapt this feature!
Initialize Your View
Synchronize Billable Items
Billing > Preparation view > Invoices to Create tab
Before you can use this new view, you need to start its synchronization.
To do this, simply go to "Billing" > "Preparation" and click the blue "Start" button.
The popup that appears lets you define the month for which to launch the synchronization:
You can synchronize up to 4 months back:
This will bring up all billable items from the selected date, even if they have already been billed. Thus, you will need to identify already billed items to ignore them and keep only items to be billed.
Before this date, all items will be considered "Billed" to avoid cluttering your view.
Let's illustrate this with an example:
I have already billed November and synchronize my view to the date of November.
All my already billed and unbilled items from November to today will appear as "items to be billed".
Warning!
Once the date is chosen and synchronization is launched, you cannot go back!
Once you have determined the date, click "Confirm" and synchronization will begin. You will receive a notification once synchronization is complete.
Don't have the initialization button?
Contact your administrator, initialization is only possible if you have access to global settings in addition to billing.
Understanding Billable Items
Go to the second tab of your view: Billing > Preparation view > Billable Items sub-tab
What is a billable item ?
Billable items are all products, services, and deliveries to be invoiced to your clients. This includes: logged time, exceptional activities, expenses or purchases to be rebilled, as well as Additional Turnover.
View Details of All Your Billable Items
Once your synchronization is established, you will find all your billable items in the "Billable Items" tab of your "Billing Preparation" view.
Each row corresponds to a billable item and is qualified by:
A type of item based on what was entered:
Normal activity: time logged in the timesheet in the usual way
Exceptional activity: exceptional time logged in the timesheet
Additional Turnover: determined in the project or delivery
Rebilled expense: expense linked to a delivery and checked as "to be rebilled"
Rebilled purchase: purchase linked to a project and checked as "to be rebilled"
An amount depending on the item.
Normal activity: Daily Rate indicated on the delivery
Exceptional activity: Production Turnover qualified via the ExceptionnalActivity app
Additional Turnover / Rebilled Expenses / Rebilled Purchases:
the amount indicated in the related item
A state:
To qualify: this applies if the amount is 0, the item has no purchase order attached, or it is not yet validated/signed
To be billed: the item is ready to be billed
Billed: the item is already billed and thus linked to an invoice, accessible at the end of the row
Ignored: the item is not linked to any invoice and is no longer to be processed
Available Filters
As you can see, this screen lets you view all items considered for your billing.
To process them efficiently, you can apply the filters you are interested in.
💡Tips
Use saved searches to quickly find your different items to process. For example, you can filter all items in the "To qualify" state for the dynamic period "this month" and save this search by clicking on the right side of your screen
Manage Your Billable Items
Billing > Billing Preparation > sub-tab "Billable Items"
Now that we have understood the concept of billable items and their states, let's focus on our processing options.
Once the right filters are applied, several actions are possible if you check one or more items:
Edit the Order Linked to the Billable Item
Do you want to invoice one or more items on a different order than the one indicated?
Select the desired items using the checkboxes
Click the pencil at the bottom center and click "Order" to open the popup.
This will offer you other available orders for the relevant project.
When you make the change, a padlock appears next to the order to indicate a manual change.
Ignore the Item to be Billed
You do not wish to invoice this item and thus remove it from your billable basket?
Select the desired items using the checkboxes
Click the pencil at the bottom center
"Ignore > Yes".
This way, when you generate the invoice, it will not appear.
Indicate that the Item is Offered to Your Client
This feature is not yet active in the beta test version: we are working on it!
Currently, marking an item as "Offered" only adds a note to its state. It will still appear with its associated amount in the invoice.
Changed your mind about an offered or ignored item?
No problem! Just check the item and choose "Ignore > No" or "Offered > No".
Prepare Your Billing
Billing > Preparation view > Invoices to Create tab
Use and Read the "Invoices to Create" View
This synthetic view is a real asset for your billing.
It offers you a basket system grouped by company and project, showing you the set of billable items pending billing.
At the top, you'll find a financial summary based on the states of your baskets. These boxes are clickable so you can easily isolate baskets requiring your action.
"Total to be billed" is the sum of all baskets, regardless of their state, and displays the total amount of invoices to be issued.
"Ready to be billed" indicates baskets with no alerts.
They require no action and are ready to be billed, individually or in bulk.
"Partially ready" indicates baskets with anomalies.
These cannot be billed in bulk, as an item does not pass the verification workflow (documents not validated, client signature pending, etc.). However, you can bill them individually from the sidebar or directly from the order.
"Action required" indicates baskets that cannot be billed as is.
Let's explore the full view:
This column shows you the client companies (and if any, your billing intermediaries) for which baskets are pending, with their states.
This column gives you 3 key pieces of information:
The project name (clickable for quick access)
The main manager of the project
The order(s) attached to the deliveries or indication if the order is missing
This column lets you identify the period concerned by your billable items. It may be a month or a date depending on the expected billing date.
These columns let you identify:
The billable items and their quantities.
Hover over the icon to display the item type!The states of associated documents: timesheets and/or expense reports.
If the client signature was required, its state
Here you find the total amount to be billed:
For a monthly order: it is the sum of consumed time x Daily Rate + Rebilled Expenses, Rebilled Purchases, and exceptional activity according to your purchase order qualification
For a scheduled order: it is the amount of the scheduled installment for the period (regardless of additional turnover or rebilled expenses)
The bulk invoice generation button allows you to start the creation of all proforma invoices for "Ready to be billed" baskets
Available Filters
Click the "Filters" button shown above to open the popup.
This provides a number of filters to quickly identify items based on desired parameters:
Perimeter: choose Project or Order as the perimeter type, then filter by agency, pole, or manager attached to the project or order.
Company: lets you focus on all ongoing projects for one or more specific client companies.
Project: need to focus on a specific project? Search for it here to only see related items!
Project state: allows you to check based on your state types, especially to verify if there is nothing left to bill on your "archived" projects.
Project type: proceed step by step and bill your projects by type
For example: time & materials first, then fixed price.
Billing type: another way to proceed step by step, this time by the type of your order.
For example: monthly orders then scheduled.
Customer agreement: easily identify all orders for which you have or have not received customer agreement.
Customer agreement is available at the purchase order level, via the client receipt checkbox.
Ordered Turnover: isolate with one click orders for which the turnover to be billed exceeds the ordered turnover
Period: want to focus on a particular month? Select the period to limit billing dates.
💡Tips
Use saved searches to quickly find your different items to process. For example, you can filter all items in the "To qualify" state for the dynamic period "this month" and save this search by clicking on the right side of your screen
Start Your Billing
Make Your Basket "Ready to be Billed"
As long as a basket is not in the "ready to be billed" state, you cannot use the bulk or individual generation button to create your proforma invoices. So how do you handle the different cases depending on the basket state?
Action required: this state is usually linked to a missing order. The order conditions the invoice, so if no order is attached to the deliveries or project, you cannot bill.
Partially ready: this state can be caused by several reasons:
Time or rebilled expenses are not validated: go to the relevant document and fully validate it. Just click the icon for a shortcut to the document.
The order indicates a signed activity report is required but it is missing: you can quickly go to the timesheet and remind your client for signature.
Exceptional activity has not been valued and thus appears as zero: you can process this item from the ExceptionnalActivity app manually or using pre-configured scales.
Once the different items are processed, your basket will automatically change state to "Ready to be billed" and you can bill individually or in bulk.
Use the Sidebar
Clicking on your basket row opens a sidebar with important information for your billing management and control.
Easily identify changes to make your basket ready to be billed
Step 1: identify the order
This step is mandatory to bill! You can directly attach an existing order or create one via your project > billing.Step 2: validate items to be billed.
This step concerns the "partially ready" basket state, but you can force invoice creationStep 3: create the invoice.
This step concerns the "ready to be billed" basket state
Once your proformas are created, steps 4 and 5 will be performed from Billing > Invoices for sending, and/or the Bank view for payment.
Basket details: find the list of billable items in your basket
This section shows time, rebilled expenses, additional turnover, exceptional activities linked to your order and their states.
Click the checkboxes to reassign the item to a different order, ignore, or bill the selected item independently.
Shortcuts to the purchase order
View important information about your order:
The company to be billed and associated instructions
The state of consumption of your ordered envelope: this lets you easily identify your remaining amount to be billed, as well as its forecast after billing
Billable items linked to this order
Invoice issuance button lets you force billing whether your basket is "partially ready" or "ready to be billed"
💡 Need to go further with billing?
See our following articles:
Find Your Billed Items
From Billing > Preparation view > Billable Items tab
Filter by the "Billed" state and find all billed items and the invoice associated with them.
From the Billing > Invoices View
Click on an invoice to find the items that have been matched directly at each row end.
If you want to follow the beta test updates before final delivery, you can access the dedicated roadmap.
Module Video Demonstration