Sales: Sales Workflows: Service Invoicing Policies: Timesheets on Tasks
Purpose
Service Invoicing Policies determine how and when a service-type product is invoiced. This document serves as a walkthrough for the Timesheets on Tasks policy. This policy is intended to be used when you're being paid for actual time spent on the service, such as a Research Service.
Process
Timesheet Configuration
To keep this walkthrough simple, let's configure Timesheets to not require approval in order to bill clients. To do so, navigate to the Timesheets app.
Once there, scroll to the BIlling section and set the Invoicing Policy to All Recorded Timesheets.
When you're done, click Save.
Product Configuration
Navigate to the Inventory app.
Once there, either select an existing product to modify or create a new product using the Product Creation Workflow document as a guideline, and be sure to configure your product with the following settings:
Under the General Information tab:
Product Type: Set to Service
Sales Price: This is the cost-per-unit of the service.
Unit of Measure: This is the default Unit of Measure used for all stock operations. You can leave this as a general “unit” measure or use “hours,” “days,” or another time-based measure. As we are offering Research Services, which we will bill by the hour, we will select the Hours unit.
Purchase Unit of Measure: This field represents the Unit of Measure used for Purchase Orders. The unit here will automatically default to the unit selected in the Unit of Measure field. However, you can manually change this.
Under the Sales tab:
Service Invoicing Policy: Set this to Timesheets on tasks.
If you've made changes, click Save.
Service Tracking
To use Timesheets, you must also set up Service Tracking. See our Service Tracking for a Product document for workflow examples.
Our example indicates that when this service is ordered, a task will be created in a project based on the Sale Order. This will allow us to enter time spent on the timesheets. hese timesheets will give us an accurate figure to invoice.
Quotation / Sale Order
To see how this works in a Sale Order, navigate to the Sales app.
Once there, click Orders > Orders, then click create.
On the Sales Order form, select Customer from the drop-down.
Under the Order Lines tab, click Add a Product and add the service product configured with this Service Invoicing Policy. Our example shows the Research Service product charged at $100.00 per hour.
Our customer is ordering one hour of Research Service, but because of the Invoicing Policy for this product, which states that she will be billed based on the timesheets entered on the task, what she’ll actually be billed for may be more or less.
When you're ready, click confirm. You'll see the order line remains black, indicating it's not ready to be invoiced. This is because we're invoicing on actual time spent, per the Service Invoicing Policy.
Because our Service Tracking selection is set to create a task in a Sales Order project, we also see a Tasks smart button. This is where we'll enter timesheets.
Click the Tasks smart button.
On the task record, click Edit.
Under the Timesheets tab, you'll see the number of hours ordered on the Sale Order are now the Planned Hours for this task.
Click Add a Line.
Enter some mock time entries for this task, and add more time than originally planned. When you do this, you will see the Durations of the lines add up to the total Hours Spent on this task. Below the Hours Spent, you will also see the Remaining Hours. Because we've gone over by 30 minutes, we show a negative amount remaining.
Click Save to save these timesheets. More time can be entered into this timesheet until you're ready to invoice the Sales Order.
When you're ready to invoice this order, click the Sales Order smart button.
On this Sales Order, you'll now see that the order line is blue. This means we've entered time for the service. Note: If the line is not blue, it's because your Timesheet settings are configured to bill for approved timesheets only.
On the order line, the Quantity shows what was ordered and the Delivered column shows real-time spent; however, the Subtotal does not reflect the cost for delivered quantity.
Click CREATE INVOICE to bring up the Create Invoices modal window.
On this modal window, Regular Invoice should be pre-selected. Click Create and View Invoice.
The invoice that was created does reflect the actual time spent. If you want to modify what the customer is invoiced for, click Edit and change either Quantity, Price, or Discount to adjust their total.
When you're done, click Save. You can now Post the invoice and you'll be ready to collect payment from the customer.