Prepay can be applied to Recurring Jobs to allow Clients to pay for an entire Job up front. Offering an Invoice discount by either flat rate or percentage is a common enticement for encouraging Clients to pay for the entire Job prior to work completion. The option to discount for Jobs with a Prepay option is built into the Prepay feature in SingleOps.
*Note: If using SingleOps Payments credit card processing with Prepayments, all prepaid Invoices will sync to Quickbooks once prepayment takes place.
In this article:
Benefits of Prepay
- Prepay allows for collect payments in advance of a larger job or service being performed.
- Prepay can hedge against any risk from the customer backing out from services rendered.
- Offers a discount option, which is appealing to many clients.
Prepay Basics
- Prepayments can only be applied to Recurring Jobs in SingleOps
- Prepay discounts can be a flat amount or percentage
- Prepay discounts are applied post-tax, and cannot be changed to pre-tax
Enable Prepay
- Prepayment is not enabled by default, it must be enabled when creating or editing the Job
- If prepay is enabled, a message will be displayed on the proposal to notify clients of this option
- The Prepay message is configurable in document template: Job-Level Proposal, in the Total tab
- Once customer accepts the Proposal, the normal Proposal accepted message is sent
- In the proposal acceptance message, there is a Prepay button which will direct your customers to the page where they can Prepay for the total (only if using SingleOps Payments)
- The total prepayment amount cannot be edited, and the full amount must be paid to use Prepay
- The Invoice Paid email is sent following a Prepayment made by a Client
- Following Prepay, any Invoice on the Job will display a Prepaid stamp
After Prepayment
- Once a prepayment is made on the Job, it will be divided into equal payments across all invoices within that Job
- If Quickbooks Sync is enabled, all Invoices for the Job and their Payments will sync to Quickbooks (dated for the proper invoice dates, sometimes several months in the future). Keep in mind the effects of this on Cash vs. Accrual basis accounting.
- Each invoice will display its portion of the applied prepaid amount
Prepay Refunds
- A full or partial refund can be applied to prepaid jobs
- By default, a partial refund will refund the last invoice first (i.e. the invoice #138-12 dated 12/01/2020 would receive the refund instead of the invoice #138-1 dated 01/01/2020).
- Partial refund amounts can be edited through the refund dialogue which appears when conducting the refund. To change the amount refunded to each invoice, change the text fields next to each eligible invoice to specify where the refunded amounts should be applied.
- If a refund is issued, the prepayment discount is not removed by default. To remove the discount following a refund, edit the Job and complete these two steps:
- Remove the Prepay Discount Line Item from the Job's Line Items
- Disable the Prepay option at the bottom of the Job
- Even after a Refund has been issued, the blue "Prepaid" marker will remain on the Job to indicate that a Prepayment was once applied to the Job
Prepay Tips & Best Practices
- Job Templates can include Prepayment terms to expedite Job Setup
- All invoices with prepayments applied should sync to Quickbooks at the time of Prepayment
- For Fixed Invoice Recurring Jobs which have been prepaid for, SingleOps can create invoices with dates which have passed
- Any changes made to future invoices on a Prepaid Job will sync after the change is made and the Visit is Approved. Changing the billable amounts and visits on a prepaid job can lead to conflicts between the payment amounts and the total price of the job. Manual adjustments may be required in SingleOps and your accounting system.
- Prepay can only be applied to entire Jobs, so once the first payment is made on an individual Invoice for a Job, the Prepay function will automatically be disabled for that Job. The only workaround for this is deleting any created payments, then refreshing the Job page. Note: if a payment which has already synced to Quickbooks is deleted in SingleOps, it must be manually deleted from Quickbooks.
Disable Prepay
- Prepay can be enabled or disabled at any point for a Job with no paid Invoices
- To remove the Prepay eligible status from a Job with no Payments, edit the Job and disable Prepay at the bottom of the page
- The Prepay eligible status will also be disabled if a payment is applied to one individual Invoice on the Job (as prepayments have to be made for the entire Job amount), whether your Client does this, or you apply a payment for them
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