Setting up your clients in inniAccounts will save you time and help you track your customers.
You can simplify your administration by setting up a ‘contract’ for each of your clients. A contract allows you to track time spent on projects, create pre-populated invoices and bill expenses and mileage claims to your customers.
Creating and managing clients & contracts
You can create and manage your clients by clicking on Clients & contracts in the invoicing of section of the navigation menu.
In here you can view and edit your existing contracts. It also gives you an overview of how many invoices have been raised against each contract and the current outstanding balance of these invoices.
To create a contract you just need to click the New Contract button at the top of the screen. You then work through the contract completing your clients details.
Client details
These details are the contact details for your end client, not your agency whose information will be entered in the Invoicing section.
The contract name is only used within the software to allow you to easily identify this contract. The start and end dates are used to control the visibility of the contract on various pages – if the contract is missing from the Quick Entry area or invoicing try extending the contract end date.
If you have our mobile app, then the colour option will identify your contracts within the app. Making it easier to differentiate between them when viewing mileage, expenses and time-sheets.
Time tracking
This section is used in your Quick Entry entries and when you create invoices.
The hourly charge should be entered in pounds – in the above example work will be charged back to the client at £45 per hour. If you charge by the day instead of an hourly rate, simply enter your day rate in the hourly charge field.
In the Quick Entry area, on your timesheet enter 1 for each full day work or 0.5 for a half day. Alternatively if you have set an hourly rate you will in put how many hours you have worked e.g. 8.5 is 8 hours and 30 minutes.
Tasks allow you to track time spent on individual tasks, workstreams or elements of a contract in the Quick Entry area. In order to enable time tracking you’ll need to enter at least one task.
If you’ve recorded time against a task, you can’t delete it. To hide the task from your Quick Entry area just un-tick the ‘active’ box and save your changes.
Mileage tracking
The details required above are used to create an entry in your mileage log when you tick the ‘default mileage’ check box in the Quick Entry area. Make sure when you enter your default journey from and to that you have a clear description and postcode for accurate records.
By clicking the default mileage checkbox on a particular day in the Quick Entry area, the software will automatically add an entry into your mileage log using the information you enter in these settings. This saves you having to repeatedly add regular daily travel to the mileage log manually.
The Billing rate would be used if you and your client had agreed that they were going to reimburse your company for your mileage during this contract.
Invoicing
The information entered here is used to pre-populate your invoices for this contract.
If you have a contract via an agency, you may wish to enter the agent’s address in the invoice address box. The invoice email address is the default recipient when you use the ’email invoice’ feature. This feature enables you to send the invoice directly to your client without having to leave the software.
The invoice reference format and next reference number allows you to apply custom reference numbers to your invoices by contract. The format for the invoice reference number is ABC{000} and the next reference number should be set to at least 1. Using this feature will display on your invoices the normal sequential invoice number for all your business invoices along with the invoice reference number if you set one for a specific contract. The preview of the invoice reference number will be displayed when you save the page.
You also have the ability to customise your invoice with a theme. You can design your own theme by clicking on Invoice branding in the Invoicing section of the navigation menu.
Finally in this section, the invoice message allows you to display useful information on your invoice – for example your bank account details.
Reviewing your contract
Once you have completed the four sections and clicked Save contract, you will be able to review the contract you have just created.
By completing a contract for your client, this will enable you to add time to your timesheet, and to quickly add your default mileage journey to your mileage log within the Quick Entry area. Your invoices will also be pre-populated with your clients details for you to then send directly to them within the software.
