Invoicing in Gingr

Overview: What are we talking about?

This article will cover how to use the Invoicing feature in Gingr. This is a core function of the app, so it’s important to fully understand how all of the pieces fit together.

This article includes:

• What is an Invoice?
• How to Use the Owner's Invoices Tab
• How to Apply Pre-Payment to an Estimate Invoice
• How to Check Out an Invoice with Payment
• How to Check Out an Invoice with No Payment
• How to Pay Open Invoices on the Business Side
• How to Pay Open Invoices from the Customer Portal
• FAQ
  • How do I debit an account?
  • How do I remove an incorrect invoice?

Helpful Hints: Before you begin.

• Invoicing is a new feature that will be released on August 1st, 2019! This article is available to help you get an idea of what to expect with the launch of this feature. To obtain a full conversion guide, check out this article.

Video Tutorial: A helpful tour.

Let's get started: What is an invoice? 

An invoice is used to communicate what is owed to the business from it’s customers. In Gingr, this is a list of itemized charges for reservations, additional services, retail items, packages, etc. listing the quantity and price of the services or items that the business has provided the pet parent. Invoices are automatically generated when a reservation or item is checked out, and can exist in three states.

1. Estimates - when a reservation or appointment is created, an estimate invoice is generated with the estimated cost of the reservation or appointment. Prepayment can be applied directly to invoices to allow pet parents to pay in advance of their reservation. Estimates can have their charges adjusted at any time. 
   
   
2. Invoices - when a reservation or item is checked out, an invoice is created that displays the finalized charges, and payment can be applied. If payment is not applied in full, an invoice remains in the Open state. Open invoices can have payment applied to them at any time, and will remain open until they are paid in full. Once payment has been applied in full, the invoice becomes Closed. 

Important! The line items, prices, or quantities on an invoice cannot be adjusted after the invoice is created. It's imperative that charges are confirmed and adjusted prior to check out in the cart—including applying packages and coupons.

How to: Using the Owner's Invoices Tab

This section will cover how to view invoices using the the Owner's Detail » Invoices page. This page will be your hub for viewing open, closed, and estimate invoices for a particular owner. There are several actions available to users on this page, including applying payments, performing refunds, purchasing store credit, printing or emailing invoices, generating statements, and much more!

To access this page, navigate to any owner's profile by using the search field on the top navigation menu. Once on the owner's profile, click to the Invoices tab.

On this tab, you'll see the owners' balance of outstanding invoices and store credit. This represents the total value of Open Invoices that the owner has (what they owe), as well as the Store Credit they have available to use on the account.

To the right of that, there are a few action buttons. Pay Balance will add the owners Open Invoice balance to the cart, allowing the user to pay off the owner's outstanding debt. Add Store Credit allows the user to purchase store credit on the owner's account (you can learn more about store credit here).

The Payment History button allows you to pull an owner's payment history for a date range. Upon clicking the button, you'll be prompted to enter a date range (or to leave the dates blank to view their all-time payment history). After clicking Generate Statement on the pop up window, the page will display a summary of all invoice actions made during the date range. This statement can be printed or emailed to the owner by using the blue Print and Email buttons on the upper right of the window.

The next portion of the page will provide information about the owner's invoices in a few different sections—Invoices, Estimates, and Account Code Breakdown.

Invoices

The Invoices section provides a list of Open and Closed invoices for the owner. This section provides details about the charges, tax, tip, payment information, and status for each invoice. 

There are 3 actions available on each invoice, listed under the Actions column. These actions include:

View Invoice—this button will open the invoice to review the charges, payments, and refunds.

Email Invoice—this button will email the invoice to the owner.

Apply Payment—this button is available for open invoices, and allows for balances to be paid on that invoice.

Estimates

The Estimates section follows the Invoices tab, and provides a list of estimates that exist for the owner's reservations current or future reservations. Estimates are generated when a reservation is created, and allow the business to provide an estimate of the charges the owner can expect for their reservation, as well as allow for prepayment to be allocated to the reservation ahead of checkout. On the Estimates tab, the actions available include:

View Estimate—this button will open the invoice to review the estimated charges.

Email Invoice—this button will email the estimate to the owner.

Apply Payment—this button allows the user to apply a prepayment towards the estimated charges.

Account Code Breakdown

The Account Code Breakdown is a great tool to use per owner to see which account codes the owner has used at your facility. Optionally enter dates into the date pickers to review the account code breakdown for a specific date or date range.

How to: Apply Pre-Payment to an Estimate Invoice

Once a reservation or appointment has been created, pre-payment can be applied at any time up until checkout of the reservation. Prepayment can be applied from any location in the app where an estimate can be generated, including the dashboard, the reservation details page, and the owner details page. To apply pre-payment to an invoice from the Owner Details page, follow these steps:

1. Navigate to the Owner Details Page.
2. Click on the Invoices tab.
   
   
3. Click on the Estimates section header and locate the estimate that you'd like to apply prepayment on.
   
   
4. Click the Apply Payment icon.
   
   
5. Enter the Pre-Payment Amount, optionally edit the Description of the payment, and choose the Payment Method on the pop up window.
   
   
6. Click Pre-Pay to apply the payment to the estimate.

How to: Check Out an Invoice with Payment

When a reservation is ready to check out, or when making a package or retail sale, and the owner will be applying payment, follow these steps:

1. Add the reservation (or items) to the Shopping Cart and navigate there.
   
   
2. Once in the cart, review the charges. Once satisfied, click the Check Out With Payment button.
   
   
3. On the pop up window, select a Payment Method, enter the Payment Amount and optionally enter a Description on the payment.
   
   
4. Enter any other payment methods, and once satisfied, click the Continue button to proceed.
5. Voila! Upon completion, a pop up will be displayed with options to Print, Email or View the invoice.
   
   

How to: Check Out an Invoice with No Payment

On occasion, you might find the necessity to check out an owner without taking payment. This is especially useful if the owner was not present at checkout, they need to purchase a new package and use a credit same day, or if owners will be paying their outstanding invoice(s) from the Customer Portal.

To check an invoice out without payment, follow these steps: 

1. Add the reservation (or items) to the Shopping Cart and navigate there.
   
   
2. Once in the cart, review the charges. Once satisfied, click the Check Out With No Payment button.
   
   
   
   Important! There must be an owner selected in order to check out with No Payment.
3. Viola! Upon completion, a pop up will be displayed with options to Print, Email or View the invoice.
   
   

Once complete, you can expect to see the invoice on the Owner Details page as an open invoice:
 

How to: Pay an Open Invoice on the Business Side.

When an owner has one or more open invoices, payment can be applied at any time on the business side of the application. Payment here can either be applied to an individual open invoice, or applied to their entire open invoice balance. If payment is applied across multiple open invoices, the payment(s) will be allocated to the invoices based on the invoices' age (from oldest to newest).

To apply payment to an individual invoice, follow these steps:

1. Use the search bar to navigate to the owner's profile.
2. Click on the Invoices tab.
   
   
3. Locate the Invoice that payment needs to be applied on, and click the Apply Payment button.
   
   
4. Clicking this button will route us to the Shopping Cart, where we'll see the balance has been applied to the cart. Here, other items can be added if desired prior to applying payment.
   
   
5. Once satisfied with the charges, click Check Out With Payment.
   
   
6. On the pop up window, select a Payment Method, and Payment Amount, and optionally enter a Description. Click Continue to process the payment and close the invoice.
   
   
7. Viola! We've successfully applied payment to an open invoice! Upon completion, a pop up will be displayed with options to Print, Email or View the invoice.
   
   

To pay more than one open invoice, follow these steps:

1. Use the Search bar to navigate to the Owner's Profile.
2. Click the Shopping Cart icon next to the owners Open Invoice Balance to add it to the cart.
   
   
3. Navigate to the Shopping Cart.
4. Once satisfied with the charges, click Check Out With Payment.
   
   
5. On the pop up window, select a Payment Method, and Payment Amount, and optionally enter a Description. Click Continue to process the payment and close the invoices.
   
   
6. Viola! We've successfully applied payment to all of an owners' open invoices. Upon completion, a pop up will be displayed with options to Print, Email or View the applicable invoices.
   
   

Important! When applying payment to multiple invoices, payments are applied to the oldest invoice first, and then carried over to the remaining invoices in age-order. 

Important! Effective 5/6/2021 there is a setting found from Admin » Check Out Options called Limit Open Invoice Payments to Current Location. This setting is disabled by default, but when enabled, business-side users can only accept payments for open balances associated with the currently logged in location. 

This is helpful for apps that share a single subdomain for multiple locations. Without this setting enabled, apps with multiple locations can sometimes run into reporting discrepancies when a pet parent has a balance across locations and pays that off under one location which is tied to a specific merchant account for credit card processing. When this setting is enabled, only open balances associated with the user's current location will be available to accept payment. This will ensure that invoice payments are processed on the correct merchant account for that location and will reflect accurately in reporting.

Example:
Jane Doe visits both the Boulder and Denver location for Happy Wags Dog Daycare. Jane has a couple of owed invoices, one for a day of daycare ($25) at Happy Wags - Boulder and one for an overnight stay ($150) at Happy Wags - Denver.

Jane visits the Denver location, and the receptionist asks her to pay her open balance during checkout.

With Limit Open Invoice Payments to Current Location disabled, when the receptionist adds Jane’s balance to the shopping cart, they would have all $175 added for both locations. One payment is taken and will go to the Denver bank account. They would need to manually send the $25 over to Boulder to reconcile this payment.

With Limit Open Invoice Payments to Current Location enabled, when the receptionist adds Jane’s balance to the shopping cart, they would only see the $150 for the current location added to the cart. The Boulder balance would remain on the account to be paid at that location.

How to: Pay an Open Invoice on the Customer Portal.

Depending on your system settings, it's possible for customers' to pay their own invoices from the Customer Portal! In order to allow invoices to be paid from the Customer Portal, navigate to Left-hand Navigation: Admin » Payment and Purchase Options and enable the setting for Allow Customers Pay Invoices.

Important! In order to accept online payments via the Customer Portal, you must use Gingr's integrated credit card processor. For more information, click here.

When an invoice is paid through the portal, the payment will always be associated with the credit card merchant account tied to the location where the invoice was generated.

To apply payment from the Customer Portal, follow these steps:

1. Log into the customer portal as an existing customer. 
2. Navigate through the Top-navigation Menu: My Account » View Invoices.
   
   
3. Click the Apply Payment button on the invoice you'd like to make payment on.
   
   
4. On the pop up window, optionally adjust the Payment Amount, enter the Credit Card details, and click Use this Card to complete the payment.
   
   
5. Viola! Once complete, the invoice will reflect the payment made and become Closed.
   
   

FAQ: Check this out.

How do I debit an account? 

Q: In the previous system, I used to be able to add a debit to an account for miscellaneous charges. How should my staff handle this now?

A: All charges must come through an invoice after August 1st, 2019. To create an invoice for an owner's account for miscellaneous charges, we recommend using an Open Line Item to record those charges and checking it out without payment to add it to the owner's account as owed. If you don't already have an Open Line Item to use for miscellaneous charges, you can create one from Left-hand Navigation: Admin » Open Line Item Types. You can learn more about setting up line items here.

Once created, to add a charge, navigate to the Shopping Cart and select the Owner from the drop-down. Then, select the Open Line Item that you'd like to use for the charge, entering a Description and the Amount. Once satisfied, click the cart icon to add the item to the cart, and click Check Out With No Payment to open the invoice on the owner's account.

How do I remove an incorrect invoice?

Q: I have an invoice on an owner's account that isn't correct and shouldn't be owed. How do I get rid of it?

A: If an invoice on an account in incorrectly placed and not yet paid, to remove it from being owed you'll need to apply a payment to close it out. In order to close it out without actually taking payment, you'll utilize your Admin - Credit Comped payment method (or any other non-money payment method).

To do this, View the Invoice, and click the Apply Payment button. This will add the invoices' owed balance to the Shopping Cart. From the cart, click Check Out With Payment and apply a payment for the amount that was incorrectly charged using the Admin - Credit Comped payment method.

This will close the invoice, showing that the charges were comped out.