There are 3 ways to create invoices from SortScape:

1) If you are located in Australia you can create, send and manage invoices directly from inside of SortScape without connecting to Xero or QuickBooks Online.

2) You can connect to Xero and create / send Xero invoices from inside of SortScape.

3) You can connect to QuickBooks Online and crate / send QuickBooks Online invoices from inside of SortScape.

To create an invoice, go to the “Invoicing” screen where you will see a list of visits that have been completed but not yet invoiced.

Select the visit(s) you want to invoice and then click the “Invoice” button at the top of the screen. If you selected multiple visits, it will combine all of those visits into one invoice. (Alternatively you can click on the visit from the schedule and click the “create invoice” button on the visit.)

After clicking this button, you will be presented with a “Create invoice” form showing the line items already added for that visit. The line items are added based on the “invoicing basis” you specify for that visit (see below). On this form you can add, remove or edit line items and other invoicing details before creating the invoice.

By default, the billing contact will be same as the billing contact specified for the property. You can, however, select a different billing contact to use when you create an invoice. When you change the billing contact and create an invoice, you can optionally choose to remember this contact as the default billing contact for that property.

When creating and invoice, you may see the option to either "automatically email invoice" or "automatically send invoice text message."

If you click the "Automatically email invoice" checkbox when creating an invoice then the invoice will be emailed to the customer as soon as it's created. Please note that this box is only selectable if the billing contact has an email address specified and, in the case of Xero, the default invoice status is set to either "approved" or "waiting approval" on the Xero settings screen.

To have the invoice always get automatically emailed you can enable the "Automatically email new invoices?" setting on the Customer Messaging > Invoice Notifications screen.

If you are creating invoices directly within SortScape or Xero, you can also optionally send new invoices as a text message. (Sending invoices via text message is not available for QuickBooks Online customers).

If you click the "Automatically send invoice text message?" checkbox when creating an invoice then the invoice will be sent as a text message to the customer as soon as it's created. Please note that this box is only selectable if the billing contact has a mobile number specified and, in the case of Xero, the default invoice status is set to either "approved" or "waiting approval" on the Xero settings screen.

The subject and body of the emails sent from Xero are generated using your Xero account's default Sales Invoice template. The email sent from Xero does not include a PDF attachment of the invoice so please make sure you're default Sales Invoice template in Xero includes a link to the online invoice.

You can also add photos and other attachments to invoices. For example, if your employees upload a photo of the completed work to the visit, you can attach that photo to the invoice. The attachments will default to “Send with Invoice” in Xero and “Attach to email” in QuickBooks Online so that the attachments can be shared with your customers when you send the invoice to them.

If the billing contact you specify does not already exist as a customer in the connected Xero or QuickBooks Online account, then a new customer will be created in that system.

If a material referenced on an invoice line item don’t exist as a product or service in the connected Xero or QuickBooks Online account then a new product will be created in that system.

Note for QuickBooks Online users:

When creating or editing a visit, you can set how the visit will be invoiced once the visit is complete. When creating or editing a visit you will see two checkboxes

Requires Invoicing - if this box is selected you will be given the option to create an invoice for this visit once it's been completed. If you don't plan to create an invoice for this visit then you can un-select this box so that you're not prompted to invoice this visit later.

Charge hourly based on time logged - this is for visits billed on a time-and-materials basis. If this box is selected, any hours you log against the visit will be invoiced at the hourly rate set. A line item with estimated hours will added to the "invoice items" section. When the visit is marked complete, the line item will be updated with actual hours logged.

For example, if you estimate a visit will take an hour at $60 per hour, then you will see a line item for the estimated amount of $60 as shown below:

Once you mark the visit complete then that 1 hour estimate will be replaced by the actual hours logged against the visit either manually or by using the visit timer. For example, if 1.5 hours were actually logged, then the visit would look like the one below once it's been completed:

Invoice items - this section lists all the line items that will get added to the invoice once you complete this visit and invoice it. For repeating visits, any line item you add while creating a new visit or editing an existing visit will get added to all visits in that repeating series. These line items have a circular "repeating" icon next to them to show that they repeat on every visit like the "Garden maintenance" example below.

If you add a line item while simply viewing a visit (i.e. without editing it) then that line item will only get added to the visit on that specific date. These line items have a "1" icon next to them to show that they are one-off items like the "weed spraying" example below.

SortScape respects the invoicing settings you’ve configured in QuickBooks Online and Xero where possible.

SortScape uses the tax settings on each QuickBooks Online product / service to determine:

By default, invoices are created with the status of “approved” in Xero. From the Xero settings screen you can change the “Default invoice status” for invoices to “draft” or “awaiting approval” depending on your Xero invoicing workflow.

To determine whether an invoice should be “tax inclusive” or “tax exclusive”, SortScape uses the Tax Defaults specified in the financial settings of your Xero account as shown below:

To determine the tax rate applied on each invoice line item, SortScape uses the “Account code” set for the Xero Product or Service specified on the line item. If no Xero product or Service is specified then SortScape will use the “Account for new Xero products” setting specified in SortScape’s Xero settings screen.

If you have a Xero customer that is tax-exempt or has non-standard tax treatment then then you can go into Xero, edit that Xero contact, go to "Sales Defaults", change their "Sales tax" setting and save. This new tax rate will now get applied to any future invoices created for this contact.

To determine the due date for each invoice, Xero uses the setting for "Sales Invoices Default Due Date" in Xero when creating an invoice.

Sometimes your clients require you to provide an account number, client number or reference code on the invoices you send them. For this case, we have a "billing reference" field which can be set for each property. The "billing reference" will get added to any invoices that get created for that property.

If you are sending invoices through Xero, the billing reference will get added to the "reference" field at the top the Xero invoice.

If you are sending invoices through SortScape or QuickBooks Online, the billing reference will get added to the customer notes field at the bottom of the invoice.

To change the billing reference, edit the property and update the contents of the "billing reference" field.

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