Invoicing Module

Although our policy is not to discuss upcoming features, it’s was no secret that we’ve been working on a new module that lets you create and send invoices from activeCollab. Now when we have shipped this module to a small group of testers, we can finally share more details about it.

Invoicing module is the first module that is designed to be distributed as an add-on, instead of being a part of the default installation package. After you get it installed, there are a couple of things that need to be configured:

• Roles. By default, module restricts access to everyone, but administrators can set who can access the module and who can use it to create and manage invoices.
  
• Company identity data, such is logo, name and additional information. This data will be used in the header of each invoice generated by the system.
  
• Currencies, tax rates and notes.

All these settings are available in administration:

Most of the action is done in Invoices tool. This toolbar item will be shown only to people who can access/manage invoices:

This tool lets you create new invoices, see invoices that are fully or partially paid and track payments. When you create an invoice, it’s status will be “Draft”:

Draft invoices can be updated - by adding new items, changing currency or tax rates, updating notes etc. The next step is to issue the invoice. After that, changes to invoice are not possible. You can either cancel the invoice or mark is as billed by adding payments to it.

The greatest benefit of having integrated invoicing inside of your project management tool is that because it can use the tracked time data. It lets you create an invoice based on a result of the specific time report and automatically control the status of related time records.

When an invoice is created, related time records will be marked as “Pending Payment” and after the invoice has been billed, the system will automatically mark them as “Billed.” If, for any reason, the invoice gets canceled, related time records will be reverted back to “Billable.” The list of related time records is always available on the invoice details page.

The list of features does not end here - there is a PDF generator with Unicode support, email notifications are sent when invoices is issued, the system supports multiple payments per invoice, managers of client companies can see invoices issued to that company and more.

There is no pre-defined released date for launching of this module (which is also the one of our policies), but we are getting closer to it as we speak. Thanks to the great group of beta testers, we hope to have this module wrapped up and released soon. Stay tuned.