Basil Billing allows you to effortlessly log client bills and easily track payment and due dates, helping you stay on top of your client billing process.
To access the Billing tracking features of Basil, click on the ‘Billing’ tab at the top of Basil.
By default, Basil displays billing in a comprehensive list of All Clients for the selected year, giving you a clear overview of your client billing activity. You can filter your billing by using the 'Select Client' filter at the top of the page to filter by a particular client as well as by calendar year, then click the right arrow.
To Create a Service Item:
Before creating a bill, Service Items must be created. You can create 3 types of Billing Modes:
- Fixed Billing - the quantity and rate for these service items can be directly entered on the Bill. Use this if your billing rate for the service is fixed, irrespective of the number of hours spent on the service.
- Hourly Billing - the number of hours logged by the Account Owner and Team Members, multiplied by their hourly billing rates, is totaled for this service item. Use this billing method if you want to bill your clients for the total number of hours spent (time card) for all services during the period. The billing rate can be different for each team member and can be configured on the Team Members subtab of the People tab.
- Service Billing - the total number of hours logged by the Account Owner and Team Members to perform a particular service for the client, multiplied by the billing rate for the service. The service performed can be selected from the Task dropdown list, and the billing rate for each service can be entered for the Service item.
To get to the Service Items table, click the ‘Service Items’ button at the top-right of the Billing tab view. Click ‘+ Add Service Item’ at the bottom-left. Pick the Billing Mode from the dropdown and add the required details. For Billing Mode set to ‘Service Billing’, a ‘Service Name’ dropdown will appear for you to select a Task type from.
To Create an Invoice:
To create a new invoice, you can click on ‘+New Invoice’ at the top-right.
This will bring you to the 'Create Invoice' screen. Here you need to fill out all required fields, including:
- Invoice Due Date
- Invoice Period To and From Dates
- The Client
- Recurrence of the invoice
- The billing address of the client
- The service performed (pulled from the Service Items list)
- The quantity of these services during the billing period (If using a Fixed Billing Service Item)
- A billable Task linked to the rate (If using an Hourly or Service Item)
The Invoice Due Date, labeled “Terms”, defaults the due date to “Due on receipt”. You can change the due dates to be ten days out (Net 10), fifteen days out (Net 15), or one month from the date you create the invoice (Net 30).
When using an Hourly or a Service Item, the Rate column will change to have a clickable ‘Add from Tasks’ button. Clicking this will list all In Progress and Completed Tasks for this client that have the ‘Billable’ field ticked and time logged in the date range specified in the Bill. Use this button to link the Service Item to the Tasks.
If you do not see any Tasks in this view, go to the Tasks tab, and ensure there are In Progress or Completed Tasks assigned to this client that you wish to be billable. Click the edit icon, tick the ‘Billable’ checkbox if it’s not enabled already, and click Save. Then you can open the Task again to work on it and log your time. Please be aware that any time logged while the Task was not set to billable would not reflect when adding Tasks to the invoice.
You can add multiple line items for each invoice by filling out the first line and then clicking on the ‘+Add Line Item’ option.
If you need to add a tax to the invoice, you can click the ‘+Add Tax’ option. This will give you two options: Sales Tax, and GST (goods and services tax). Adding a tax will update the Subtotal/Total area with a new line and a field where you can add a custom tax percentage. Tax amounts can include decimals.
If you want to add a discount to the invoice, you can do so via the ‘+Add Discount’ button. Adding a discount will update the Subtotal/Total area with a new line and a field where you can add a discount. Discount amounts can include decimals.
If you accidentally added a tax or discount, it can be removed by clicking the trash can icon to the right of the amount.
You can also leave notes about this particular bill for you and your Team Members in the 'Notes' section.
Once you have added all the required information for the invoice you wish to generate, click ‘Save’ at the bottom right.
The bill will now appear in the list of bills. To view or edit the information you entered in the previous step you can click on the bill number on the left side. The list will show you summary information about the bill on each line. To enter information into the columns you see here, click on the pen icon in the Actions column. This will bring up the 'Edit Invoice Details' screen.
Once your client has paid and you want to update the invoice and close it out, click the ‘Update Payment Details’ icon in the Actions column, the icon that looks like a clock with a circular arrow. Click the “Select Date” field to bring up a calendar allowing you to select the date that the invoice was paid.
Clicking the “Select Payment Status” dropdown gives you the following options:
Please note: Once you enter a date into 'Date Paid', the invoice can no longer be edited.
You may also convert any Invoice to a downloadable PDF document by clicking on the ‘PDF’ option in the Actions column. If you want to delete an Invoice, click the trash can icon in the Actions column.
