Client items

A client is invoiced on their billing day: the 1st to the 28th of the month, or the last day of the month. Billing is in advance, so the invoice on the 1st covers that month.

• Account default: go to Settings > Automation > Client items and set the Default billing day. Clients without their own day use it.
• Per client: edit the client and choose a Billing day. Leave it on the account default to follow the setting.

Monthly items bill on the billing day every month. Yearly items bill on the billing day once a year, in the month of their first invoice.

If you change a client's billing day, the next invoice moves to the first occurrence of the new billing day on or after the date it was due. There is no partial charge or credit for the days in between.

When the start date is not the client's billing day, Rebill asks how to handle the first part of the period:

• Prorate the first period charges for the days from the start date up to the next billing day. Rebill shows the exact amount before you save, with the dates, the number of days charged out of the days in the period, and the invoice it is added to. The prorated amount is added to the next regular invoice as its own line, and it is the amount the client is billed.
• Start billing from the next billing day charges nothing for the part period before it.

A start date can be at most one billing period in the past, so a client is never billed for many missed periods at once.

By default a client item follows the price of the catalogue item. Switch on Custom price to give that client their own price. Custom prices show a Custom badge in the table. Edit the item and switch the custom price off to follow the catalogue again.

When you change the price of a catalogue item that clients follow, Rebill asks you to confirm before saving. The message says how many clients follow the price and that their next invoices will use the new price. It also says how many clients have a custom price and are not affected.

Some charges are not recurring, such as an installation charge, a joining charge or a deposit. Add these as Once items. A once item bills its full price a single time, on the client's next regular invoice, and then moves to History. It is never prorated and never bills again.

• Adding a once item: in the Add item dialog, set the billing to Once. Rebill shows the invoice date it will be billed on before you save. A once item can be added on its own, even when the client has no recurring items.
• Add with this item: when an item always comes with a once charge, open it in your catalogue and choose the other items in Add with this item. You can choose up to 5. For example, add an installation charge to a fibre line.

When you then assign that item to a client, the Add item dialog shows an Also added once section. Each linked item is ticked, with its catalogue price and the invoice it will be billed on. Untick an item to leave it out for this client, or change its price for this client only. The linked items are saved together with the main item. A mid-month start prorates the recurring item only. The linked items bill their full price.

Linked once items show Added with and the name of the main item in the table. You can edit the quantity, price or description of a once item, or remove it, until it has been invoiced. Once it has been billed it stays in History.

A linked once item belongs to its main item until it is billed:

• Deleting the main item also deletes its unbilled linked items. The confirmation lists them.
• Ending or replacing the main item asks whether to also remove them. This is ticked by default. Untick it to keep them billing on their own.
• When you upgrade or replace an item, the linked items of the new item start unticked, so a client who already paid them is not charged again.

Once items are not added by Add client's items on an invoice. They bill on the client's next regular client items invoice, so adding them by hand would bill them twice.

To move a client to another item, open the menu on the row and choose Upgrade or replace. Pick the new item and its start date. By default Rebill ends the current item the day before the new one starts. You can pick a different end date for the current item, as long as it is before the new start date. The history links the two items.

The new item can start today. If it starts between billing days, the default is Start billing from the next billing day. You can choose to prorate the first period instead.

Billing is in advance, so once the current item has been invoiced it is paid up to its next billing date. If the new item starts before that date, it starts billing on that date and prorating is not available, so no day is billed twice. Ending an item does not credit days that were already invoiced. Prorating is available again for a start on or after that date.

Choose End from the row menu and pick the last day of service. Until that day the table shows when the item ends, and after it the item moves to the History section. Ending an item stops future invoices only. It does not credit days that have already been invoiced, and invoices already issued stay as they are. If the item has a prorated first period and you end it on or after its first billing date, that first invoice still includes the prorated amount. An item that has never been invoiced can be deleted from the row menu instead, which removes it completely.

Ended items stay on the client's Items tab under History, showing when they started and ended and which item replaced them. Expand a row to see what changed, such as price and quantity changes. The Purchased section lists every line on the client's sent invoices, not only client items, newest first, with a link to each invoice.

In Settings > Automation > Client items, choose what happens on a billing day:

• Send automatically (the default) creates each invoice and emails it to the client. You can also turn on Also send by WhatsApp, which uses WhatsApp credits. Client credit is applied according to your automatic credit setting.
• Create drafts for review creates a draft invoice per client in Invoices > Batches. Open the batch, check the invoices and send them from there. Drafts mode does not apply client credit automatically.

If you discard a client items batch, those clients are not billed for that period. Their items move on to the next billing date.

Client items and recurring invoices are separate, and both keep working. The Items tab also lists the client's recurring invoices so you can see everything that bills them. If a client has both, both will bill. Rebill warns you when you add an item to a client with an active recurring invoice, so use one or the other for the same charge.