Invoices and receipts should be viewed as documents rather than accounting data. For example you could create an Invoice (and Receipt) for a rent check that then bounces. In this case you still need to keep the record of both the Invoice and Receipt to possibly evict the Tenant in court. As a result you should not be editing the Invoice and Receipt after they have been provided to the Tenant which is why they are viewed as documents rather than accounting data. In fact that same Tenant could pay you again with another bounced check at which point you have another set of Invoices and Receipts before they finally pay you. In other words you could have 1, 2, 3, or more Invoices and Receipts for the same rent and if that’s the case you don’t want the system to create multiple rent payment entries in the accounting data because you have multiple Invoices and Receipts for the same rent. As a result the software does NOT use the Invoice and Receipt data as accounting data, nor is it used for the accounting reports. The Receipts and Invoices should instead be viewed as documents.
Invoices are meant to be given to your tenants before the rents are due, as a notice of payment. One of the benefits of this is that you have evidence in court that your tenants knew ahead of time when and what rents were due. Invoices are not just use for rents, you can produce an invoice to your tenant to inform them about any amount they may owe you (electricity bill, parking…).
Receipts are a record of payment which you give to your tenants after you have received the rent or other payments.
Invoices and receipts are completely optional. Many tenants don’t require or really just don’t care about invoices and receipts, and therefore many property managers or landlords avoid this step if there is no benefit, which is why they are completely optional.
** IMPORTANT: Please note there is no link within the software between the invoice/receipt payment and the above mentioned reasons (as well as additional reasons), and that they should be viewed as documents. For example if you edit an Accounting Entry, the software shouldn’t change the Invoice because this may have already been printed and given to your tenant. Similarly, it’s possible that the tenant doesn’t pay, doesn’t pay in full, and so on, which means that the Invoice may not match the actual Accounting Entry. Therefore, changing an Accounting Entries value in the accounting screen will not change the invoice payment entry, or vice versa.
All the steps required to deal with a receipt are the same as for an invoice, and vice versa. Therefore, we will describe only the steps related to an invoice because they are the same for receipts.
Depending if you need an invoice for a rent, a one-time payment such as a damage fee, or a recurrent payment such as an electric bill, you will choose from the steps 1A, 1B, or 1C.
STEP 1A: Create an invoice and a receipt for a rent
By default in the program, each time you create a new lease, a Scheduled Invoice and a Scheduled Receipt are both automatically created for you and are recurring at the frequency you specified in the lease (ex: every month).
This feature can be enable or disabled in the System Settings menu, when you click Lease Settings and then select the preference group to Edit button.
STEP 1B: Create a one-time invoice or receipt
To create a new invoice, go to Invoices menu, click New on the top right of the screen and fill the information related to that invoice. The Start and End Dates of the Invoice are to indicate the timeframe which the invoice is applicable. So for example a rental invoice for the month of January would be from January 1st to January 31st.
You can associate a landlord and/or a tenant to the invoice depending on which information you wish to present on the invoice.
To add a payment from a pre-existing Accounting Entry Click Get on the right side of the items box (New to create a new entry).
In the pop up window you will see a list of accounting entries associated to the Landlord or Tenant you chose. Select the ones you want and click Select.
To create a new Payment, click New on the right side of the items box. In the pop up window, enter in the appropriate information and click Ok.
STEP 1C: Create a scheduled invoice or receipt
Creating Scheduled Invoices and receipts is very much the same process as Scheduled Accounting entries therefore we will refer you to that section for more details.
In cases where the amounts may be different every month you can just leave the line items empty and fill them in as needed in the generated Suggested Invoices/Receipts the same as is described in the Accounting Entries section.
STEP 2: Print the invoice(s) or receipt(s)
In the upper portion of the screen select the invoice of your choice and click Print in the top menu. Please note that you can select multiple invoices for them to be print at the same time.
STEP 4B: Email the invoice or receipt
Similarly in the upper portion of the screen View the invoice of your choice and then click Email in the top menu. You can only email one Invoice at a time because each invoice requires an addressee (To) and a message. As well, sending all your invoices at the same time can result in your email address, domain, and/or server being incorrectly flagged as sending spam emails which can lead to all sorts of complications and problems.
STEP 5: Matching up invoices and receipts and accounting
Invoices and receipts are separate and independent and they may not match up to the accounting system due to the above mentioned reasons. For example a check bounces but you need to keep the invoice/receipt that was provided to the tenant, or maybe the rent is never paid but the invoice is sent, and maybe even a receipt was printed for a bounced check. In this case, your invoices will not match your receipt, nor the accounting entries. Therefore because they are separate you can do whatever type of mixing and matching you need, which works to your advantage here.
As well, many tenants don’t really care or want any invoices and/or receipts even if they should, so for those property managers and landlords it’s possible to omit this section completely for those tenants and save them some time when processing rents.
This is also why all accounting related reports generate their data only from the accounting section and not the Invoices and Receipts.