Invoice Workflow Example - Invoicing Project Disbursements

WorkGuru has a very flexible invoicing functionality to suit any invoicing workflows. This is an example of invoicing a purchase order that was raised within the project as a project disbursement. This allows you to easily pass on any direct costs to you raised on the project on to the client. This suits a workflow where you buy all stock to order for, or get invoiced by subcontractors for work completed on a project.

Raise a project purchase order for either materials or subcontracting via the projects material's tab to create a billable disbursement.   Ensure the project purchase order is marked as billable to display in the project's quick invoice screen.

From the project's Quick Actions menu, click on Quick Invoice.

From the quick invoice details screen, fill in the following fields:

• Invoice Number - Assign an invoice number or leave blank to assign automatically.
• Client Purchase Order - Client PO number/reference. If needs to be added/edited, edit the project.
• Description - Update the invoice description if required. This is an invoice specific description for display on the invoice template. It will also default to the project number and name, this will display on the first line of the imported invoice in Xero.
• Reference - Enter an invoice reference, such as a claim number.
• Date - Issue date
• DueDate - Invoice due date.
• Invoice type - Actual Usage - When invoicing project disbursements, the invoice type is usually (but not limited to) actual usage, as the the purchase order when received is tracked as an actual cost on the project. The key to invoicing project disbursements correctly is to understand how the costs are being presented.  In the screenshot above, the costs look like they have been duplicated. Technically they have been displayed twice, but the quick invoice screen needs to display both to allow you to invoice EITHER the forecast/quoted costs OR the actual purchased disbursements. Project disbursements are designed to be invoiced in conjunction with other project tasks and costs in the quick invoice screen. You do not have to invoice disbursements separately. NOTE: If the purchase order/disbursement lines do not display in the quick invoice screen, the project purchase order has not been set to "Billable".
  • The costs in the blue box are listed because they were listed the project's forecast/quoted. This will allow you to still bill the Percentage of Forecast/Quoted and Custom Invoice types correctly.   
  • The costs accrued on the project via the purchase order are listed in the red box. Note: These line items are displaying the actual cost as per the costed project purchase order. This allows you to apply a markup to these lines (if required) to pass the cost on to the customer. When invoicing the disbursements, its important to not invoice the forecast line items (blue box) - this will duplicate the line items.

Remove the $0 line items you do not want to display in the invoice using the "X" on the right of each line or the Delete Empty Rows button. Review the invoice's tax sub total and total amount. Tax settings on each line item can be confirmed by clicking on the blue "+" icon to drop-down.

Click Save Invoice to create a draft invoice.

Review the draft invoice and if correct, click Approve and Email to Client or Print to create a PDF to send to the customer.   The Invoice is now ready to be imported to Xero via the Xero dashboard Accounting -> Xero

If the project disbursements are part of a scheduled of project invoices, the quick invoice screen will indicate which disbursements have been invoiced previously, as well as ones that haven't. If the actuals invoice type is selected, previously invoiced project purchase order disbursements won't be displayed.