Deposits

The Deposit feature will allow SingleOps account users to create proposals and jobs with a required deposit. This article explains how to set up this feature, the options within the feature, and how deposits will sync to your accounting software.   

In this article:

Checklist

Set-up, Settings, & Filters  

When Clients Pay their Deposits

Entering Deposits Internally 

Applying Deposits to Invoices

Syncing Deposits to QuickBooks

 

Checklist

Use this checklist along with the detailed steps below to make sure everything is done correctly when setting up this feature. If any of these steps are not done the deposits feature will not work.

1. The feature is enabled in your SingleOps account, if it is not, or if you are not sure about this, contact Support@Singleops.com

2. The General Ledger account is created in Quickbooks and set up according to the examples in the "Setup in Quickbooks" section below.

3. The "Deposit item" is set up in Quickbooks and linked to the general ledger account created in step 

4. Confirm both of these have synced to your SingleOps account 

5. In SingleOps, go to admin --> account settings --> company section. At the bottom there will be a field for selecting a deposit item. Select the item you created in step 3.

 

Set up, Settings, & Filters  

• The Deposits feature must be enabled by a SingleOps team member. If you have completed implementation, you can request this feature be enabled by contacting support via email, chat, or the web widget.
• Account Settings
  • The "Deposit Item" needs to be selected in your Account Settings, for more information scroll down to the QuickBooks section at the end of this guide. 
  • Once enabled, there are 2 settings that can be adjusted by an account admin. These settings alter the default behavior of a job when the deposit is requested. Once this setting is toggled on, a job will automatically go on hold until the deposit is paid. Upon payment, the "On Hold" status will be removed from the job automatically. 
  • If you want more information or need a refresher on how the "On Hold" feature works, click the following link (On Hold for Clients or Jobs)
• Email Notifications
  • To the client: Clients will receive an opt-in emailed receipt when paying a deposit. 
  • To the User: The email address set up in the account setting, ""Who should we email when a customer pays an invoice via credit card?" will receive a notification email when a deposit is made.

Once the feature has been enabled on your account, the settings for deposits will appear on the proposal and active job creation screens. 

The Deposit Type and Deposit amount selections can be used as a percentage or a flat amount. 

Example: If you wanted to create a proposal and require a 25% deposit to begin the job, you would set the Deposit Type to "Percentage" and the Deposit Amount to "25.00."

Note: You can NOT enable prepay and deposits on the same job. 

Once the Proposal or job is created, you notice some additional tags and table rows. These will allow you to easily locate jobs that have deposits enabled and see the amounts paid. 

Note you can now filter jobs with deposits enabled from the job management screen. Using these filters, you can find all the jobs that have an outstanding deposit, and if you'd like, send them an email reminder.

 

Setup in Quickbooks

In order for SingleOps to properly sync the Sales Receipts and Credit Memos a Deposit Item needs to be designated in your account settings. If this step is not completed all Deposits will fail to sync to QuickBooks.

This item (or in QuickBooks Online it would be a "service") should be created in QuickBooks, and the "income" account should be linked as an "other current liability." 

Once this Item/Service is added in QuickBooks it can be selected in the appropriate dropdown in your SingleOps Account Settings.

 

When Clients Pay their Deposits

• This section will go through your clients POV when receiving, accepting, and paying a job that requires a deposit. In the screen shot below you will notice the required deposit amount is shown on the pdf, and next to the accept button. 

Note: If you have custom documents, SingleOps will need to update them for this feature to display properly on your document PDFs. 

Once the job is accepted the client will be taken to the "Pay Deposit by Credit Card" screen. In the example below, the client's deposit amount due is $1660.00 

Note: A client can pay MORE than the required deposit here but not less.

Your clients do not have to pay the deposit at that very moment. If they accept the proposal but do not pay the deposit, the job will remain on hold until they do so. They will be able to come back to the same proposal and pay the deposit later. (Pictured Below) 

 

Entering Deposits Internally 

This section will go over entering a deposit as a SingleOps user. 

You will notice a new button on the top of your jobs for entering payment on deposits. 

You'll enter the deposit amounts, date, notes, etc. the same as a payment. Once completed, when you navigate back to the job you'll notice the tags have been changed and the "Deposit Paid" field will display the amount paid. 

 

Applying Deposits to Invoices

Once the deposit has been been paid you will need to apply the deposit to an invoice. To do this click the blue "Payments" button in the top right of the job screen. This feature will operate differently depending on what type of job you require a deposit on. We will go over each of these in the following sections. 

A. Applying a deposit on a One Off Job

From there enter the amount you wish to apply to the job invoice. Deposits can be split or partially applied over multiple invoices. 

• Note: Deposits can not be applied to other jobs, or used as credits, even if it is for the same client. 

B. Applying a deposit on a Multi Visit Job 

• For this job type, the deposit is applied automatically against the visit invoice when the visit is completed. (See video below) It will continue to apply the deposit to individual completed visits until the entire deposit balance is 0$. The following visits will need to be invoiced as usual. 
• You can manually apply portions of deposits to specific visits if you would like. For example, you have a 10 round lawn care job that you took a 20% deposit on. If you wanted to apply this deposit to visits 9 and 10, you can accomplish this by going into the specific visit, clicking "Payments" and applying the desired deposit amount. 

*Recurring Job with a paid deposit

Short video - completing a visit with a deposit on the job

Note: On Demand Jobs with unlimited visits will only have the flat rate choice in the drop down menu. It would not be possible to take a percentage of the job with an unlimited amount of visits. 

C. Applying a deposit on a Fixed Invoice Job 

• For this job type, deposit is applied automatically against the invoice upon generation for fixed invoice jobs. By default, it counts the whole deposit against that invoice (so e.g. if you had a big recurring job with a 20% deposit, it will take 100% of the value of that invoice until the deposit is $0. 

D. Applying a deposit on a Combined Billing Schedule 

• Similar to multi visit jobs, when you apply a deposit (when completing the visit) to a visit that is on a Combined Billing Schedule it will update the CMB with the visit information and the applied deposit if available.  

E. Applying a deposit on a job within a Proposal Group

• This functionality will be in a future product update. Currently deposits can not be taken on proposal groups. 

 

Syncing Deposits to QuickBooks

Deposits sync to QuickBooks using a combination of Sales Receipts and Credit Memos. Upon receipt of a deposit from your customer (Steps II or III in this guide) a Sales Receipt is synced to QuickBooks to record the unearned income liability on your books. Once the deposit is applied against an invoice (Step IV in this guide) that invoice is synced to QuickBooks along with a credit memo to record the amount of applied deposit (up to the full value of the invoice). This credit memo would reduce the unearned income liability on your balance sheet. 

In this example you will see three transactions:

• 1/1/2021 Sales Receipt - This Sales Receipt serves to record the customer paying the deposit. The Sales Receipt is synced to QuickBooks once the deposit is paid by your customer. It increases the balance of your bank account, and also the liability account the "Deposit Item" is tied to. The name of the deposit item is not important, only that it is tied to the appropriate liability account, and is designated in SingleOps (more on this below). 
• 1/5/2021 Invoice - The invoice will sync to QuickBooks when the deposit is applied against it, or whenever it would sync otherwise (the relevant visit is approved, or if it's a fixed invoice, upon generation). 
• 1/5/2021 Credit Memo - If the deposit has been applied against the Invoice a Credit Memo is synced along with the invoice to reduce the open balance of the Invoice by the amount of the deposit. In this case reducing the invoice's open balance from $5,350 to $4,350.

Though this example is for QuickBooks Desktop it is almost identical in QuickBooks Online. These same three transactions happen in QuickBooks Online, but in addition, a $0 payment record is created that ties the Credit Memo to the Invoice.