How to Create an Invoice

  1. When you are raising an invoice, please read ALL notes fields in the job record. If it hasn’t been specified somewhere explicitly, call the company first to confirm who to invoice as this often can be someone different to the contact we’ve been dealing with up to that point.  
  1. Then double check with that contact that they are indeed the person to invoice. 

If they have specified they need an NI number, check on the client’s page that this info is filled in. If not, call the client and chastise them severely until they give their NI number up.  

  1. Go to the bottom of the job record in the client’s tab where there is an invoices tab. Click ‘add invoice’. This will take you to an invoice page, and if all information had been filled in correctly at the job record stage, it will have been copied over. (Do NOT create invoices from the invoices tab in the middle column) 
  1. Link the Invoice to the company by typing the name of the company in the box beneath Invoice to  - Contact. (If the company hasn’t been entered correctly into TagMin, you may need to go to Contacts and add the details before returning to the invoice task in hand.) Once that is done or if we already have the company in there correctly, but it needs to go to a specific person, click the ‘override contact’ button and add their name in the ‘FAO’ box.  
  1. Link the invoice to the job by filling in the “Link to Client Booking” box with the project name. Start typing in the project, then select from the drop down menu. Make sure you have linked the Job not the Meeting. 
  1. Add each item separately in the ‘Items’ box. Where airdates/territories are involved, make sure these are specified against the fees (i.e. ‘6 months UK TV only from 4th November 2015 – £3000’). 
  1. Select the appropriate commission rate for each item (refer to the Commission Cheat Sheet in Bottom Line Fees doc on the Desktop). You will need to scroll through the options as they have been updated but the old ones are still there – look for the ones with the highest fees!  (Remember that an Agency Fee will also be commissionable at the same rate as the other fees from the job). 
  1. Make sure the ‘Payment Text’ box is set to “Client Account” – this ensures our bank account details are on the actual invoice! 
  1. Click Add Invoice, which will save your work. 
  1. Now click the ‘download invoice’ button way at the top of the tab. This will show you what the PDF of the invoice looks like, so you have the chance to adjust again if need be.  
  1. Once you are happy with your work, save to PDF using format:  Invoice number, client initials, name of job (including whether BSF, usage etc. if necessary), date, e.g.: 

1750 KQ Training Invoice BSF 12dec12 

  1. Save in “Actors Creative Team Docs/Finance/All Invoices – Saved by number” as always. 
  1.   (NB DO NOT use TagMin to email invoices!)Use Outlook to email a copy to the desired recipient, making sure to BCC in the ACT ICAN team.  There is a handy ‘Quick Parts’ template for this: click in the body of the email, then select the ‘insert’ tab at the top of your window, and from there select ‘Quick Parts’. Scroll down until you get to the ‘Email for sending invoices’ and click on it. The template will now be in the body of the email. Adjust as required.  
  1.  Go to ‘Tags’ on the Outlook email menu and select ‘Request a read receipt for this message’ and THEN click send. 
  1.  If sending via post, print a copy of the PDF and pop it in the post. Then email a copy to the iCAN team.  
  1.  If you’ve got this far, and then realised you’ve made a mistake, DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES DELETE THE INVOICE! Making changes is really simple. Just go back into the invoice record and amend at will, then save a new copy of the invoice as ‘1750 KQ Training Invoice BSF 12dec12 AMENDED’. Then re-send or re-print as needed.  
  1. If you’ve accidentally created an invoice too many, or where no invoice was needed (common practice when training…or even just when reminding self of how to do invoices), DO NOT DELETE THE INVOICE!! Just go back to the invoice, and in the ‘Paid?’ drop down menu, select CANCELLED.  
  1.  Put a note in the ‘Invoices’ section of the weekly journal to say you’ve sent Invoice number XXXX 

There is no need to create a task to chase this up, as Tagmin will remind us automatically on the dashboard when an invoice is overdue.