Creating and sending membership fee invoices is often a precise job.
In this article, we explain how you can easily create and send invoices with our new contribution invoice wizard.
You can read the full explanation about creating invoices, setting up products, and invoice workflows here.
Contents
Introduction (automatic or manual)
1. Check contribution settings (video)
2. Start the contribution invoice wizard
3. Check and send draft invoices.
Introduction: Create invoices automatically or manually?
(Image: our new contribution invoice wizard)
Manual
You can, of course, create an invoice manually by:
- selecting a set of members,
- creating an invoice for a set of members,
- marking it as a contribution invoice and completing the fields,
- reviewing your draft invoices and then sending them.
Repeat this process for all membership statuses (and contribution products).
Automatic
You can now use the new "Contribution Invoices" wizard in our new interface .
This wizard calculates exactly which member should receive an invoice for which period.
This reduces the need for checking and errors. Before starting it, it's a good idea to check a few settings.
Have you set up your contribution products, including the contribution periods, correctly?
Then creating invoices is a breeze with our new wizard:
1. Check contribution settings
Before you start the contribution invoice wizard, it's a good idea to check a few settings first.
The video below briefly explains where to check the contribution settings"
Steps from the video
Please check if your Products are up to date.
Set the " contribution period " and " contribution product " for each member status (also consider: "pro rata" and the invoice term).
Check your invoice workflow; (are you using direct debit, is the invoice text correct (and generic), are automatic reminders turned on/off (we recommend turning reminders off initially)
Check: Settings > Financial > General: the start month of the association year.
Now you're ready to start the contribution invoice wizard and create and review your draft invoices.
2. Start the Contribution Invoice Wizard and create invoices
Go to: Financial > Invoices > green button: +New invoice > create contribution invoices.
The wizard will guide you through the following steps:
Steps explained
Step 1 - Select a contribution period. Repeat the wizard for each period.
Do you have members who pay monthly (instead of annually), for example? Then repeat this process separately, each month. These invoices can later be sent to your bank in a direct debit batch (if you use direct debit as the payment method).
Step 2 - Select which membership statuses you want to invoice.
( Here you can also select membership statuses with members with a different billing period (e.g., monthly), which will be skipped in the next step.)
Step 3 - Overview of the "invoices to be generated" per member status. Here you can see whether the quantities match your expectations.
Step 4 - Invoice details. Here you select the correct invoice workflow: this contains the text you send to your members, along with the text on the invoice. More about invoice workflows .
You can optionally set a Reference and an invoice date. Step 5 - Confirmation for creating draft membership fee invoices. Every new invoice is always a draft invoice first . This allows you to check whether it is correct. You can still edit or delete a draft invoice (even in bulk).
Now you are ready to check the draft contribution invoices and then send/process them.
3. Check and send/process draft invoices
To process the draft invoices you will have to 'Send' them.
Before you do that, it's a good idea to check a few invoices.
Go to: Financial > Invoices > gray button: Bulk actions > select: Send invoices.
In the following steps, you'll choose the sending method, among other things.
Sending an invoice means:
that you turn a draft invoice (or several) into a 'payable' invoice.
You choose how you inform your members about this.
Here you can choose from:1 - According to the texts from your chosen invoice workflow .
2 - By email. Here you'll receive a copy of the text from your invoice workflow and can still edit it.
3- Manually. This means no email will be sent to your members at this time.
(You can still do this later, using a temporary filter and a manual mailing to selected members, or something similar.)
Invoices sent? Time to collect!
Now you're ready to receive payments. Sometimes this is done via direct debit and/or iDeal , and/or a manual bank transfer .
See
the articles below for more information on: how to collect (contribution) invoices, how to process your payments, send reminders, process chargebacks, in other words, everything to keep your administration 'tidy'
.