1. Overview
Maintenance Companion simplifies your invoicing process by transforming completed work orders into professional invoices.
These invoices can be directly sent to your customers or easily uploaded into QuickBooks for seamless accounting.
Work Orders can be categorized as:
- Hourly Work – Invoice lines are generated by calculating the total hours worked at each applicable rate.
- Fixed Price Work – Invoice lines are created using a predetermined fee for each completed work order.
Once the invoices are created it is possible to review the invoice details and make any necessary adjustments before sending it out.
Each invoice can be composed of several key sections:
- Hourly Work – there will be a line item per service per rate, with the total hours calculated for that rate.
- Fixed Price Work – there will be a line item per service with a count of the work orders completed.
- Quoted Work – where a quote has been provided, that figure will be used to invoice that work order.
- Costs – there will be a line item for each cost that has been entered against work orders, except for quoted work where it is assumed the costs have been included in the quote.
- Subcontractors – there will be a line item per subcontractor scheduled on a work order, with their fee.
Best Practices
- Always generate invoices for all properties and select the option to include previous items to ensure all work is billed.
- If you choose not to send a particular invoice, you can delete it, and all associated work orders will be reset
- Where possible, avoid editing invoice detail rows directly. Instead, update the work orders with any changes. This will keep all your invoices in sync with your work orders.
2. Initial Set Up Required for Invoices
- Rates
- If you do any Hourly Work, you’ll need to set up rates. Create as many different rates as your team requires.
- Team Members
- Once you have created the rates, apply a default rate to each member of your team. This can be overridden when work orders are scheduled.
- Subcontractors
- If a subcontractor charges a standard fee, you can save that fee under their name.
- If the fee changes by job, just leave this field blank.
- Services
- These should match the services you’ve already set up in your accounting software.
- Choose how each service is billed: Hourly Rate, Fixed Fee, or Not Invoiced.
- If you select Hourly Rate or Fixed Fee, add the relevant Tax code and Tax Rate (from your accounting software).
- If you select Fixed Fee, also enter the fee amount for that service.
- Work Order Types
- For each work order type, select the service that applies to it.
- You can reuse the same service for different work order types so you can track multiple work order types, and invoice these under a single invoicing service.
3. Creating Invoices
Maintenance Companion enables you to generate invoices for one or multiple properties within a selected date range.
Follow the steps below to create an invoice. Only work orders that haven’t yet been invoiced will be included.
Note: when getting started, any work orders marked as billed will not be picked up for invoicing.
Step 1 – Select Properties
- Choose the properties for which you want to generate invoices. You can select one or more properties.
- If no properties are selected, invoices will be created for all properties by default.
Step 2 – Define the Date Range
- Select the date range for the invoice.
- Use the ‘quick select’ option to choose this month or last month or manually select a custom date range.
Step 3 – Include Earlier, Not Invoiced Items (Optional)
- Enable this option to include any older work orders or part of work orders that have not yet been invoiced.
- This ensures that late entries, such as additional team member hours, subcontractor fees, or missing cost elements, are captured in the invoice.
Notifications
- If no work orders exist for a property within the selected date range, no invoice will be created.
- After invoices are generated, the system will display the number of properties processed and which had work orders to be invoiced.
- A confirmation email will be sent the admin user that submitted the form detailing the invoices created.
4. Reviewing and Managing Invoices
Invoice Statuses
Invoices can have the following statuses:
Pending: When many invoices are created, some may be queued with a pending status until they are created.
Open: Initial status of an invoice that has been created.
Reviewed: Users have the option to mark an invoice as reviewed prior to sending or extracting the invoice. This helps keep track of progress when reviewing a group of invoices.
Sent: If the invoice is sent directly to the property owner, the status will be updated to “sent”.
Extracted: If the invoice is being imported into QuickBooks, its status will be updated to “extracted”.
Part Paid: If the invoices are sent directly to the property owners, it is possible to update invoices to mark full and partial payments. For a partial payment, the paid amount is entered.
Paid: If the invoices are sent directly to the property owners, it is possible to update invoices to mark full payment.
Void: Can be set to “void” if the invoice is not going to be extracted, or if payment is not expected to be received.
Invoice Reports
There are two menu options to view invoices:
- Invoices: Displays all invoices prior to be sent.
These will have a status of Pending, Open, or Reviewed.
- Invoice History: Displays all invoices regardless of status.
The following actions are available on the invoice reports:
Edit: Allows the selected row to be edited. All the header and invoice detail rows can be edited as well as adding / removing detail rows.
[See note on best practices for editing invoices]
Refresh: Allows the current invoice to be refreshed. This allows for the date range to be adjusted. This will also pick up any changes that may have been made to underlying work orders.
Reviewed: To support tracking which invoices have been reviewed prior to Sending or Extracting, an invoice row can be marked as Reviewed.
If it is marked in error, Reviewed Invoices can be reset by a Re-Open option.
Create QuickBooks File: Creates a single extract file of invoices for all selected properties.
The file is in a format that can be imported into either the Online or Desktop version of QuickBooks.
[Available where Send by Mail not set up]
Send: Send will create a pdf version of the invoice and send it as an attachment to the property owner(s).
Any owner with the Receive Invoice flag set against their property owner details will receive a copy of the invoice.
[Available where QuickBooks is not being used]
Paid: Option to mark an invoice as Paid or Part Paid
[Available where QuickBooks is not being used]
Remove: Removes the selected invoice and resets all associated work orders. This is available for any unsent invoice.
Void: Marks the selected invoice as voided.
Invoice Summary
Clicking on an invoice row opens the Invoice Summary, which provides a detailed breakdown of the invoice.
Each detail row represents a specific charge or service. By selecting a detail row, you can view the corresponding work orders that contribute to that charge.
The invoice summary breaks down the invoices by the following categories:
- Hourly Work
- Fixed Price Work
- Quoted
- Costs
- Subcontractors
Work Orders Not Included on Invoice
This section is used to highlight any work orders that were in the invoice period but are either partly or completely not included.
Scenarios where items may not be included on an invoice can include:
- A team member has a zero rate or no hours booked to a work order.
- A subcontractor fee has not been applied to the scheduling row.
- A cost has been added with a zero amount.
Reviewing this section helps ensure that all work orders are fully invoiced and that the property’s billing is accurate.
Edit Invoice
You can edit both the invoice header and detail rows.
Reminder of best practice:
Where possible, avoid editing invoice detail rows directly. Instead, update the work orders with any changes. This will keep all your invoices in sync with your work orders.
The invoice totals are automatically calculated from the invoice detail rows.
Invoice detail rows can be modified in the following ways:
- Updated: Changing the quantity, hours, or rate will break the link to the associated work orders. If the invoice is refreshed, any changes to existing detail rows will be updated to match the work orders.
- Deleted: Deleting a row will mark the associated work orders as “Not Invoiced”. If the invoice is refreshed, the deleted row will be re-added.
- Created: Manually adding a new detail row will mark it as manually created. This row will remain unchanged if the invoice is refreshed.
Manually Create an Invoice
It is possible to manually create an invoice. This will not be linked to any work orders.
Exclude from Invoice
Work orders or their details can be excluded. This prevents them from being included in any current or future invoice.
- Work Orders: A work order can be marked as Excluded from the Work Order History report if its Invoice Status is Not Invoiced, Invoice Created, or Part Invoiced.
- Scheduled Rows: A schedule row within an hourly rate work order can be marked as Excluded.
- Costs: Individual costs can also be marked as Excluded.
Extracting and Sending invoices
Maintenance companies can be set up to support sending invoices to QuickBooks or sending invoices direct to customers.
QuickBooks Extract
If the maintenance company is set up to invoice with QuickBooks, there is an option to create an Invoice extract for QuickBooks.
- A single extract can include multiple invoices.
- The generated CSV extract file will be emailed to the user who created it.
- To import the file into QuickBooks, go to Settings > Tools > Import Data and select Invoices as the import type.
- Upload the emailed CSV extract file and follow the import instructions.
- Once imported, invoices will be available to view in QuickBooks.
- After import, invoices can no longer be updated in Maintenance Companion, and payment tracking should be managed in QuickBooks.
Sending Direct to Customer
PDF formatted invoices can be emailed directly to customers.
- One or more invoice rows can be selected for sending. Each selected invoice will be generated as an individual PDF and emailed to the customer.
- There is a flag on the Property Owner to determine which property owner(s) receive the invoice emails.
- When sending invoices directly to customers, it is possible to also track payment receipts. Sent invoices can be marked as Paid or Part Paid.