Invoices

There are two core objects: Invoice and Line Item. Line Items work as a related object to the Invoice.

You can send invoices to your customers for payment over the web using our DocumentLink.

Before Creating an Invoice

Before creating an Invoice, you should create a Company Info record with your logo and company information and complete the payment's setup wizard.

1. Complete the payments setup wizard
2. Create a Company Info record. (The address, name, and logo that you enter here are rendered on the invoice.)
3. Create a DocumentLink Template record. Set lookups to the Payment Gateway and Company Info. When you create your Invoice, set the lookup to the DocumentLink template to default your Invoice's configuration and merge fields.
4. Authorize DocumentLink.

Create an Invoice

1. Navigate to the Blackthorn | Billing app and click on the Invoices tab.
2. Click "New" in the top-right corner.
3. Select the Order, Invoice, or Stripe Invoice record type.
4. Set the values for:
   • NameThe name field is automatically generated with an "INV" prefix and an ordered numeric string. For example, your first invoice will have the name of "INV-1". This can be edited for any custom needs. This value will be rendered beneath the word 'Invoice' on the DocumentLink document. This value is also written to the 'Description' field of the Transaction record(s) related to the Invoice.
   • Subject optional
   • PO Number optional
   • Payment Term optional
   • Due Dateoptional
   • Payment Gateway required for InvoicesDefining the Payment Gateway tells the system which Stripe Account the money should go to.
   • Enabled Payment Methods required for InvoicesDefine how you would like to be paid for the invoice. Card, ACH or both. Keep in mind that ACH transactions have a $5.00 capped fee which is an inexpensive fee compared to cards which have a percentage based fee.
   • Company Info optional
   • Discount Code optionalIf a discount code has been created, define the record here.
   • Contact (Bill To) optionalThe Email and Phone fields will automatically pull in the related Contact's email and phone values.
   • Account (Bill To) optionalThe address fields will automatically pull in the related Account's billing address.
   • Account (Ship To) optionalThe address fields will automatically pull in the related Account's shipping address.
   • DocumentLink Template optionalThe DocumenLink fields will automatically pull in the related DocumentLink Template fields.
   • Tax Amount optionalThe Tax Amount field can be manually defined to calculate the percentage of taxes you would like added to a Transaction.
5. The Currency ISO, Status and Payment Status fields are automatically defined with default values.
   • Currency ISO: USD
   • Status: Draft
   • Payment Status: Unpaid, only for invoices
6. DocumentLinkThe DocumentLink field is automatically generated with a random alphanumeric link. This link is used to render the invoice online.
7. Click Save.
   

Screenshot of a completed Invoice record.

8. Click on the DocumentLink link.
   

Once your invoice is completed, you are ready to view the Invoice through the web-based and mobile responsive DocumentLink.

Screenshot of DocumentLink created from the corresponding Invoice.

Auto-convert Opportunities to Invoices

You can convert an existing Opportunity object to an Invoice. The Opportunity Line Items will be converted to Line Items in the Invoice. The newly created Invoice will be linked to the originating Opportunity using the Opportunity lookup field.

We have a lookup field Line Item on the Opportunity Product. This will facilitate mapping the Invoice Line Item directly with the Opportunity Product Line Item. So when an Invoice is created from Opportunities using the "Create Invoice" button, you can self map additional Opportunity Line Item fields (Example - custom tax field) to the Invoice using a process builder.

Invoice Payment

Once the Transaction related to the Invoice has been captured (manually or with DocumentLink) and if the Balance Due of the Invoice is 0, the related Invoice Payment Status field is set to Paid, the Status field is set to "Completed" and the Paid In Full field is set to the current date/time.

Refunds

Sometimes you will need to refund an Invoice, for a wide variety of reasons. This can be for either a full or partial refund. Initiating a refund will show no update in the Invoice in particular, the payment status stays as "Paid" and the balance paid stays as 0.00. This shows that no money is owed from the customer. A new Transaction will be created, with the amount paid as the refund amount identifying that the Transaction has been refunded.