Quite often the need arises to enter an "extra charge" onto an invoice. These extra charges could be billing for battery that was used, postage charges, perhaps an hour of time that wasn't captured on a Work Order, or any other reason to charge your client.
Rather than write them down and try to remember to add a line on an invoice at a later date, using the Delayed Charges system within QuickBooks makes accounting for these charges and adding them to an invoice easy.
To follow the process, let's say that today at the Brower Residence we encountered a beeping smoke detector in the master bedroom. We replaced the battery and now we want to bill the client for it.
First, we'll (1) click the Plus sign in the upper left in order to add a transaction, and then click (2) to open the Delayed Charges entry screen.
Fill out the entry screen completely -- customer, dates, service code, etc. Remember that what is in the Description line is what will appear on the invoice, so make it detailed. In this case we added a reference to the master bedroom so that it will be clear when the client receives the invoice.
After you've saved the entry it will be easy to see a total of any entries that have been made on your Sales screens. They will appear as "Unbilled Activities" and you can always click on that box to see a list of all the entries you made. You can also edit the entries on that list.
On the Customer's screen, under all the transactions you'll also be able to see the Delayed Charge appear, along with all the invoices, payments, etc. In this case, look at the red box and you'll see the entry we just made. You'll also notice the invoice that we want to add the charge to.
You can create a new invoice using the link to the right of the charge, but what you will usually do is add the charge to an existing invoice. Your workflow will be: (1) Create the invoices in the Home Watch Business Management App for Method, then (2) add any delayed charges you've entered, and then (3) send the final invoices to the clients.
Clicking on the invoice you wish to add the charges will open the Invoice Edit screen like this:
On this screen you'll notice a Chevron character (1 in the picture above) appear on the right side. Click that and a column will open on the right listing all of the Delayed Charges you've entered for that click. Adding them to the invoice is as easy as clicking the "Add All" button (#2 above). After you do, you'll see the charges move from the right column to the invoice, and the column will close.
In the invoice you'll see the charge that was added as a new line on the bottom:
That's it! Save and Close the invoice and know it's ready to send to your client.
We think this is a very useful feature for easily entering and tracking any misc charges you need to enter for your clients -- give it a try!
If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact us.