Overview of Billing
Erin Jamison avatar
Written by Erin Jamison
Updated over a week ago

Note: This article is intended for use by customers who are currently participating in the beta test for this feature. Not all customers will have access to the feature discussed in this article.

Index

Enabling Billing

The Billing feature is available to every Admin, to turn this feature on, head to your profile off of the main menu > click edit > scroll down to extras and click on Billing. Be sure to click save and it will then be enabled, you will notice a billing section will appear in the main menu.

Please keep in mind each Admin will need to turn this on for themselves to use the feature.

Turn on the ability to send and export invoices

To send and export invoices, you must have the permission turned on as well. To turn it on, open your Main Menu > click on your Profile (name) > click 'edit' on Permissions > Scroll down to Billing and turn on 'Send or Export Invoices and Billing Runs'.

Updating your Billing Details

Set up Tax Rates, Tax Identification Numbers, and Invoice Templates. The information entered in these sections will then be applied to the Invoices created in Karbon.

To access your Accounts Billing Details, go into your Main Menu of Karbon and click on Settings > Billing.

Chart of Accounts

The AR ledger records transactions against a set of different accounts - this includes accounts for recording Expenses, Payments and Sales Tax.

Set up

In order to align the accounts used Karbon AR ledger with the accounts in a firm's GL - a mapping needs to be created. Creating or updating an account mapping is done inside the Billing Settings (Settings > Billing).

Please keep in mind a Journal cannot be exported from the AR ledger until all of the accounts have been mapped!

If your account names or codes have changed, you can alter the account mapping by editing your Chat of Accounts and editing as needed.

Accounting Period

Configure your Accounting Period to manage what gets included in your Journal exports.

Set up

To set up or update your Accounting period, navigate to your Billing Settings (Settings > Billing) and click 'Set Accounting Period'. Here it will allow you to set up your frequency of choice as well as of what date you'd like it to begin on.

You can further update your accounting periods by going into the Finance section under Billing on the Main Menu.

Tax Rates

Set up tax rates for your firm that will be used when preparing invoices in Karbon in the near future. To set a tax rate go into your Settings off of the main menu and select Billing. Based on your firm's country set in Account Settings, we have populated some core tax rates.

For the US and Canada, we have set Tax Exempt and No Tax Set core rates and for Australia, UK and New Zealand, GST and VAT rates have been set for you.

If you have clients that have different tax rate requirements, you can select a tax rate for those contacts by going to the Billing section on the Details tab. When invoices are created for that contact, the tax rate will be applied to all invoices by default.

You can set up either single or combined tax rates.

Tax Identification Number

It is a requirement in many countries to display tax identification/registration numbers on invoices. Below the tax rate section in your Billing Settings, you can also set up tax identification numbers by clicking.

To set up a Tax Identification Number:

  1. Click 'Add Tax Identification Number'

  2. Enter the Identifier field (name displayed on Invoice )

  3. Enter the Tax Identification Number

  4. Select related Tax Rates

  5. Select if the TIN will appear on the invoice. If 'don't show on invoices' is selected, when associated tax rates are applied, a TIN will not be applied to the invoice.

Invoice Templates

In preparation for being able to send an invoice in Karbon, you can now view an Invoice Template within your Settings off of the Main Menu click into Billing and the Invoice Template will be at the bottom.

In this first version, you are able to select a default payment term (Net 7, 14, 30, or 45) and add payment instructions. When invoices are created, the payment term and payment instructions will default to those set on the Invoice Template. On the template, you can also see how the Invoice will be presented to clients including the logo and branding color chosen in Branding off of the Main Menu.

Email Templates

Customizing the email template used when sending an invoice to your clients can be easily done in the Settings > Billing menu in your account.

When customizing your invoice email template, you have the option to change the default message that is sent along with the invoice. You can also add additional placeholders that become populated with unique information about your customers and invoice. For example, you can add the company name and the price of the invoice.

Once you have made your changes and saved the template, all future invoices sent to your client will use this email template.

If you'd like to use this same template to send to all your customers, you can click on the "Make default" button and this template will always be the one sent out.

Please keep in mind there is a 3,000-character limit.

Setting up Branding

Personalize your communication to ensure it reflects your brand. Navigate to your Settings and select Branding, add a logo and choose a branding color. .

The logo will be applied to all invoices and the branding color will be used on the total and due dollar amounts on the invoice.

Using Billing

Once billing has been enabled, you will then be able to use the feature by viewing unbilled items, approving invoices and exporting them in Xero or QuickBooks Online format for further billing purposes.

Choosing the Bill To Contact

By default, each contact will be the 'Bill To' contact when you are viewing your unbilled items. This can be changed within the contact's details under the billing details section.

  • The Billing Address and Billing Email for each Contact have been set by default. To change the billing address and billing email, select a different email or address from the dropdown.

  • The Bill To defaults to the contact

  • To protect private and hidden information, private and hidden contacts can only bill to themselves

  • Client Groups are not legal entities, but rather a collection of legal entities, and cannot bill to themselves. You can select any public contact as the Bill To and all work and time assigned to the client group will be billed to the selected Bill To

  • On Work items, you can select a different Bill To option. If you change the Bill To for the work item this will NOT change the Bill To for the Contact

If you need a single work item to be billed under a different contact, perhaps when the contact is billed as an organization, you are able to change the 'Bill To' contact within the work item. This change is made in the Basics section on the Details tab of the individual work item.

You can also individually change the 'Bill To' contact within the Unbilled section of Billing. Click on the work item that you'd like to change the bill to > use the options menu (...) on the right and choose 'Change Bill To'.

Finding billable work

Once you've enabled Billing, you can find it by navigating to your Main Menu and selecting Billing, by default this will open your Unbilled items.

Filtering and Viewing unbilled items

Unbilled work will be grouped by who the invoice will be issued to in alphabetical order. Each work item included in the invoice has its own Invoice Type; final or progress. By default, it is inherited from the work item’s status, when the work item has the status “Completed” it will automatically select Final invoice. However, you are able to change the invoice type to the progress type if needed.


When you click on the bill to contact, you will see the following information:

  • The work items

  • The client

  • The related client group

  • The work status

  • The billable amount

  • The amount billed

You will see work items with the fee type of Fixed Fee and Time and Materials.

All Fixed Fee type work items will appear under Unbilled unless you've created and approved an invoice with invoice type “Final”. Whereas Time and Material fee type work items will appear in the Unbilled screen when:

  • The work item does not have an approved invoice with invoice type “Final”

  • Or has unbilled time entries or expenses

You can filter your unbilled view to get to the specific invoices that you need to approve or view.

You further improve your view by using the following filter options:

  • Assignee

  • Bill To

  • Client

  • Client Group

  • Client Owner

  • Client Manager

  • Due Date

  • Fee Type

  • Status

  • Work Type

Once you've filtered, it will only show you invoices that match your criteria.

Remove work from unbilled items

If there are work items in the unbilled section that isn't needed in an invoice at all or yet, you can remove individual or bulk items from the unbilled section.

To do this, navigate to the 'Unbilled' section under 'Billing' off of the main menu and select the work items you'd like removed.

If you're individually removing them, you can remove them by clicking on the options menu (...) to the right of the work item and clicking 'Remove from Billing'

If you're removing multiple, you can do this in bulk by clicking the empty boxes of the preferred work items and clicking 'Remove from Billing'

Restore work removed from unbilled

To restore work removed from unbilled:

  1. Click on the sorting slider in the upper right portion of your screen

  2. Turn on the view for removed items.

  3. Select the items you'd like restored

  4. Click 'Add to Billing'

Creating a draft invoice

To create a draft invoice, you can select the work items that you'd like to include and select 'Create Draft Invoice'. You can individually choose which work items to be added to an invoice

If you need to invoice all of the items in the unbilled section, you can use the multi-selection tool at the top of the page next to 'No Items Selected' to grab all the invoices shown.

Or you can select all the invoices for one client using the multi-selection tool next to your 'Bill To' contact.

If you made a mistake, you can discard a draft invoice under 'Invoices' and the work items will appear in Unbilled.

Once you've selected the items you'd like in your invoice, you can select 'Create Draft Invoice', this will automatically take you to your newly created draft invoice.

Or you can also access them from your Main menu under Billing > Invoices, by default it will show you the draft invoices first.

Adjusting a draft invoice

Adjust your invoices prior to approving them to ensure they are as accurate as possible.

You will have a full audit of the actions performed within the invoice activity section of the drafted invoice.

You can additionally mention your colleagues in the Invoice Activity of the drafted invoice which will allow them to see what updates were made.

Keep in mind if they don't have access to the Billing feature, you will not be able to add them in the comment.

Write on / Write off

Billable Time

For Billable Time, this can be done by changing the amount value at the total amount level or for each row. If calculated at the total amount level, the system calculates how much write-on/off there is for each row based on the hours and billable value per combination. If calculated at the row level, it will calculate the write-on/off for that time entry only.

Fixed Fee

If you track time on Fixed Fee work items, a calculation of the write-on/off per individual time entry will be created. When you view the time entry section on the fixed fee work item, you will see two additional columns called billed and write on and off.

Each time a time entry is added, in the background we will calculate the write-on and off and billed amount for each time entry.

Billed Status

Once an invoice has been approved, all time entries already added will be marked as billed and any time entries added after will then be marked as billed as well

Carrying Time

Billable Time

If you decide that you don't want to bill all the time entries listed on the invoice and want to bill them at a later time, you are able to carry the time entries.

This can be done one at a time or in bulk by clicking on the checkbox and clicking the button option that says 'Carry'.

Once the invoice is approved, these time entries can be found back in the Unbilled section. If you want to re-include time entries before approving the invoice, click the checkbox again and click 'include'.

Fixed Fee

Unlike billable time, you cannot carry individual time entries. Instead, you can carry the amount of the invoice. This can only be done if the Fixed Fee Item is marked as a progress bill (see toggle section below for information on progress vs final bills). To carry adjust the amount to be a lower value.

Final Bill Toggle

Next to each work item on the invoice is a toggle, when toggled on, it indicates that will be the final invoice for that work item. For Fixed Fee items, this means the Fixed Fee work will no longer appear back in unbilled after the invoice is approved. For Time and Materials work, any time entries added after the invoice is approved will not appear back in Unbilled.

The Final Bill Toggle is toggled off by default for Time and Materials work items and on by default for Fixed Fee items.

If there are billable items for the same work (e.g expenses and time) and you toggle it on for one of the items, it will turn the toggle on for all billable items attached to that work item that is on the invoice.

Discarding a draft invoice

To discard a draft invoice, go into your draft invoices off of your Main menu under Billing > Invoices, by default, it will show you the draft invoices first.

There you can click on the draft invoice that you'd like to discard. Hover around the far right of the invoice and an options menu (...) will appear, click on the options menu and choose 'Discard'.

This will remove the draft invoice and revert it back to the unbilled items.

Approving an invoice

When you have completed reviewing your drafted invoice, you can then approve the invoice. Once you click approve, you can choose the payment due date.

Keep in mind anyone with access to Billing, will have the ability to approve an invoice.

Filtering and Viewing approved invoices

Approve invoices will also be grouped by who the invoice will be issued to in alphabetical order.


You can filter your view to see the items you need to approve, the following filters will be available:

  • Bill To Contact

  • Payment Due Date

  • Approved By

  • Approved Date

  • Last Downloaded Date

Approve and Send

Using the feature will allow you to both approve and send the invoice straight away. The invoice will come from the user who clicks send. Before it is sent, the system will confirm the to and from email addresses before sending and allow you to cancel sending. If you cancel sending, the invoice will be in an approved state.

There are some issues that will stop the invoice from being able to be sent. See this article on the common issues and how to fix it.


Once successfully sent, you will find the email and a PDF version of the invoice in their sent folder in Triage. Due to privacy and the need to ensure all dollar values remain private, invoices are not automatically added to timelines. You can manually add it to a timeline or @mention colleagues through comments in the email.

Once sent, the invoice moves from the Draft list (or approved state) and into Awaiting for Payment list.

Approve

In addition to approving and sending, you can choose to just approve the invoice. Once approved, you are able to perform the following actions:

Sending

The same rules apply as above and the same checks will be made to ensure the invoice is legal. If you need to change the invoice date or add missing details, you are able to edit the invoice by putting it into a draft state.

Exporting approved invoices to QuickBooks Online or Xero

If you use Quickbooks Online or Xero for your invoicing, you can export your invoices to QuickBooks Online or Xero formatting to import them into the system.

To do this, navigate to the approved tab within the invoices section off of the Main Menu, select the desired invoices to export and click 'Export for QuickBooks Online (QBO)' or 'Export for Xero'.

Receivables Summary

View a breakdown of outstanding items across your clients with Client Receivables. Outstanding and overdue debt is shown at a summary level for all clients and broken down by client level. If there is no debt for a client they will not be shown on this page.

Please keep in mind, this page will include debt for hidden contacts in the totals, but not in the summary by the client (unless the viewer has access for that hidden contact).

Click on each contact available in the list to see a breakdown of all invoices awaiting payment, activity for that contact, billing contact information, and how much you have invoiced vs received for that client.

Further Readings:

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