We'd like to know if you would use an automatic invoicing feature in Billings. If so, we'd like to get some detailed examples of what you would use this feature for. Any other thoughts about this feature would also be helpful.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Brandon W,

what a coincidence, I just downloaded Billings today as a demo to figure out how it works. I'm a freelance webdeveloper with my own hosting service. And i was looking for the recurring options... to bad i did not find them (yet). So I could use that option for sending hosting invoices every year. Would be handy because keeping track of 30 domains isn't an easy job!

yup I agree with Jeroen. I have monthly maintenance fees and it would be really really good if you guys can automate this.

I would need an auto billing/invoicing function that I can set using something like a blueprint OR a customised monthly invoice.

Just some followup questions for you two if you don't mind:

Jeroen, which day of the year do you bill on? Does each client get the same yearly invoice with the same total?

Andi, which day of the month do you bill on? What sort of maintenance fees are these and are they billed to multiple clients? Some specific examples would be helpful. Also what do you mean by a customized monthly invoice?

Thanks.

I agree w/ the other guys. I have recurring billing for:

Hosting
Billed yearly - on a different date for each client. Most clients are charged the same amount - although some are different.

Monthly Maintenance Charge
Billed monthly - on the same date for each client. This is billed at a standard hourly rate.

Hope that helps. Awesome program, by the way. I've just started using it (after comparing it to a number of your competitors) and it's the best of the bunch.

Thanks,
Jesse

Sorry for the late response! I'll be checking the forum more often because I like this way of giving feedback!

Each customer gets its yearly invoice on the date it ordered the hosting product. And some clients order multiple hosting products at different dates. They receive multiple invoices for every product ordered on the date they've ordered it.
The totals of these invoices stay the same.

So the recurring should be on the products ordered. And what may come in handy for each order, is setting the recurring period. I've got a customer with an expensive hosting product. This customer liked to pay with installments. So I have to bill him every 3 months by hand...

And I like the program too! For keeping track of hours its fantastic! But for someone who sells products too there's still a lot to add!!!

I am also a web dev with hosting clients.

I invoice yearly (because I hate paperwork) on the first of the month that the client signed up for.

I have notes in iCal to remind me to do them, so that is okay, but some measure of automation would be nice.

Prices vary somewhat for clients different packages.

I also have some legacy support agreements that are billed a lump sum each month, at the first of the month. An automatic 'slip' might be the way to do it. To be honest, I only just started my eval period on Billings2 today and frankly, expected such a feature to already be there.

to continue... I just remembered one of mine is billed quarterly..

Mass billing would be a great feature as well. I have about 20 - 30 cases that I work on recurring for the County every month. It would be great to be able to select all the ones I need to bill and just have Billings create and print an invoice for each.

This would be great for one client with multiple projects or multiple client each with a single project - I would use it for both.

-AJT

Yes This is a sorely needed feature.
I also charge a yearly hosting fee and i'd love an automated way to do it.

Also is there currently a way to assign multiple contacts to one client? I do work for several art directors in different departments of one publication.
Ultimately the invoice goes to the person@company. It would be nice to differentiate the different project managers.

I am a studiometry user and i'm looking to switch since the upgrades are so damn expensive and it's full of bugs which have already mangled or completely lost all my financial data on two occasions.

I love the simplicity of billings and its template design system but there are a few stuidometry features that keep me from switching:
- recurring costs invoicing
- multiple contacts to one client
- automated notifier for overdue invoices etc.

I'm not sure if those are actually implemented in billings but from a few hours of poking around i didn't seem to find them. Please correct me if i'm wrong and if there are workarounds around these tasks.

Sorry if this isnt the right place for this whole rant.

Wow, lots of web geeks use billings... Me too.

I invoice on the first of the month for the following month's services (net 30).
I have monthly, quarterly, and yearly hosted clients.

I use the slip comments to include the service and the date covered:

============================
Monthly Web Hosting fees for
[domain.com]
(for January 2008)
============================

A stopgap measure to make recurring invoices easier would be to simply add the functionality to duplicate a sent invoice (with a new ID).
I was surprised to find that duplicating invoices was not possible in Billings.

Past Due invoices are also a pain-- since we can't edit sent invoices.

I need recurring billing as well, basically I have hosting accounts that recur monthly, bi-yearly and yearly. I just need those to generate automatically and then I need to be able to print them all out (or email) all of them at once easily. This is important, if they cannot all be easily printed in a batch then there is no point. right now I HAVE to use quickbooks for this if you all can make this happen that will be my last reason to ditch QB! Thanks!!

A big +1 on recurring invoices/slips here!

My situation is essentially the same as everybody else's in this thread. I have a mix of one-off invoices (development tasks) as well as regular web hosting invoices.

Sounds like were all freelance developers. OP any new news on this?

Thanks!