Track Hours for Invoices where the client pre-pays for the work done

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Rachel Morris

• December 22, 2017 21:35

I find it's best to get paid for my work first, and then do the work. So I send out an invoices for a flat fee. My clients pay that (say - 10 hours). Once the invoice is paid, I use the timer to start tracking my hours and doing the work. Then, when I've done 10 hours of work, I go back, create a report for those hours and for that invoice, and send the client the report so they know what I've done.

Currently, I keep a notepad by my desk so I can track how many hours I've done for what invoice. Then I go back into Bill4Time, and run a fake invoice to get a clear picture of my time reports for the client.

This would be Much Better:

- In the Create Invoice dialog, there's an option for "Prepaid Time"
- When Prepaid Time is selected, you can just put in the number of hours without requiring a Timer."

- In the dialog for New Timer, there's a field that says "Prepaid Invoice"
- In the field, the auto-text says "track hours for prepaid invoices."
- In the drop-down box, invoices that still have unused up are available. 
- If all hours are used, and there's no more payment from the client, the dropdown says "No Remaining Invoice Payments."
- The user selects the invoice number, and in the timer, the number of hours REMAINING appears and counts down to 0.
- If the user is working, and the countdown box gets to 0, that timer stops, and a new timer starts with the same client and project, but no pre-paid invoice.
- The user can then go in, and attach any invoice that still has money, and is related to that client and project.

-Under Create Statements a new option is added under the Statement Filter "Prepaid Invoices"
- The user selects "Prepaid Invoices," and the start and end dates
- The statement then shows all time entries between and including those dates, with the invoice number.
- The user can send that to the client, and send a new invoice for the next pre-payment.

 

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  Martijn Spronk

  • January 20, 2018 14:49

  I'm totally behind this! I just visited the forum cause im in the same situation and need this kind of functionality too.
  Like the original poster, I fudge my way around this right now, but an explicit pre-charge feature where hours are actually taken out of this bucket when using the timer would be great!!

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  Dennis Rice

  • March 29, 2019 20:55

  Ditto this.

  In my case I actually do an SOW and require a 10% deposit to begin work.  I need to send an invoice with the SOW for the 10%, which I would like to show as a credit to the client.  Not even sure how I would "fudge" this in B4T ….

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