Quotes and Invoice Management
Create, Send, and Track
A big benefit of using a Complete CRM tool is the ability to integrate your quotes and invoices with your business processes. GreenRope’s CRM allows you to build, send, and track invoices that are connected with contacts in your account. You can set up automation at each stage of the invoicing process to easily share, remind, or move the contact to a new stage. This quick overview covers how to do just that!
Benefits of Integrating Your Quotes and Invoices
- Create, send, and track your payments through your CRM
- Connect billing items to your storefronts, projects completed, events attended, and more
- Individually manage and store your quotes/invoices in the contact’s CRM Activities area
- Create templates, assign due dates, and automation around payment
- Streamline your billing process for the services or products you offer
- Trigger automation for invoice sending, overdue, or completed payments
- Track each step of the payment process including initial sending, contact’s first open, payment success/failure, and more
- Generate detailed reports, including account receivables, in the Accounting area
- Sync and export your contacts and invoices to your QuickBooks account
Creating an Invoice or Quote
All quotes and invoices will need to be created, stored, and sent directly to a contact in your CRM. So to get started, go into the contact’s CRM Activities area and you’ll see the Invoices section along the right. Then, click the “New Quote/Invoice” button (note that by default you are creating a new invoice).
1. Define the Type of Invoice/Quote
A new window will come up and you can choose whether you want to continue creating an invoice or click to Create New Quote (drop-down list on the top left-hand side of the window).
Define the account where you want these payments to be collected through and if the contact is connected with an opportunity. Set up workflow automation triggers for overdue invoices and when the invoice is paid. Then determine if you’re creating a new invoice template, or if you want to load a previous template stored in your CRM.
You can change the due date and select whether it is a one-time invoice or a recurring one. If it is a recurring invoice, you can define when to stop these invoices being sent and activate a specific workflow to trigger when workflows are created.
When you build your invoice it will be "from" the group associated with the invoice. You can specify a Public Description and Physical Address in Group Settings to customize this. If the group’s address is not set, the system will use the address you define in your Settings > Account page
2. Add Descriptions, Line Items, and Footer
Personalize your quote or invoice by adding a description and invoice footer. Then build out the line items, event attendance, storefront purchases, or project billing options associated with this invoice.
Each invoice or quote can include as many line items as you need by clicking the “Add New Line Item” button at the bottom of your invoice. Line items can be individually entered items (with quantities and unit costs, or cost per unit), or they can be events. Events will automatically show up when a contact has indicated he or she will attend the event and if that event has a fee associated with it. To remove a line item, set its quantity to zero (0) or uncheck the event checkbox.
3. Save Quote or Invoice to the Contact’s Record
Make sure to save this invoice template along the bottom right of this page. Here, you have additional options such as downloading a PDF version, send the invoice to the contact, mark the invoice as paid, or delete the invoice.
4. Customize the Thank-You URL After Paying for an Invoice
After an invoice is paid, the contact will be directed to the Purchase Thank You page that you have defined in your Website Storefront. You can specify the Thank-You URL redirect for a paid invoice under Website > Manage Site/Landing Pages > Store tab > Purchase/Checkout Options tab. Here, scroll down to the "Purchase Thank-You URL" field and enter the "Thank-You URL." Once this URL has been updated, make sure to save your check out options. If no Purchase Thank You URL is designated, the contact will be redirected to the website home page associated with the invoice's group.
Sending an Invoice or Quote
When sending quotes and invoices to your contacts, there are two main ways to achieve this. Either through the contact’s CRM record or by triggering a workflow that’s directly connected to this contact.
1. Sending Directly To The Contact
All quotes and invoices will need to be sent directly to a contact in your CRM. In the Contact’s CRM Activities tab, you’ll see all a list of quotes and invoices along the right. Click into any of these invoices to send an invoice or quote directly from the Invoice Creation screen. Along the bottom of this invoice, use the Send button to easily share this invoice with your contact.
Otherwise, each quote also a direct link associated with it which you could embed in an email you’re sending to this contact. To find this link, click into the specific invoice and click on the ? icon on the top-right corner. Here, you can copy-paste the direct link to share with your contact.
2. Sending Through a Workflow
Workflows trigger automation for contacts throughout your CRM, making it a great way to send invoices when specific actions have taken place. To learn more about creating and triggering workflows, check out our How-To blog post on Workflows.
In the Workflow Manager, create a new workflow and go into the “Sending Actions” tab. In the Invoice/Quote/PO: area, enter the ID number of a quote or invoice you have already built. This workflow will duplicate that quote or invoice and send it to the recipient of this workflow.
The quote or invoice will be due in the number of days specified and you can include other email addresses by CC’ing them in the CC Email Addresses field, with each address separated by a comma.
SPECIAL CASE: If this workflow gets activated in an Opportunity that is Closed - Deal Won, it will automatically attach the Products for the Opportunity as line items in the quote/invoice.
Tracking Invoices & Quotes
1. Contact’s CRM Activities
The system will keep track of when you first sent this contact an invoice, and when it was first opened, or viewed, by the contact. All of this information is stored in the contact’s CRM Activities tab. Any monetary amounts can quickly be viewed on this page and all invoices/quotes are stored in the “Invoices” area along the right.
2. Accounting Area
To get an overview of the invoices and quotes in your system, go into the Apps > Accounting area. The Accounting page is broken up into four 4 quadrants, for an easy-to-manage single place to see a summary of everything financial.
Top Left (Accounts) - this is where you set up your bank accounts and income and expense categories
Top Right (Receivables) - these are outstanding invoices and event payments due to you
Bottom Left (Journal) - enter the individual payments made and received here
Bottom Right (Reports) - this is a graphical or detailed text summary of your accounting
3. Dashboard Widgets
On your Home Dashboard, there are many widgets that pull your accounting information to your home page. Here, you can get quick summary charts on various transactions and conversions, as well as how much different opportunities are worth.
4. Export to QuickBooks
Use the QuickBooks Synchronization area (Contacts > Import) to synchronize contacts and invoices with your QuickBooks account. The first step to prepare for your QuickBooks sync is to make sure the group you want to sync with is selected from the Groups dropdown box located in the upper left corner of your account.
Next, go to Contacts > Import > QuickBooks and check the various option boxes if:
- You want the contacts in your group to update contacts within the company you have open in QuickBooks
- You want contacts within the open company in QuickBooks to update the contacts in your group
- You want the invoices in the open company in QuickBooks to update invoices in your group.
Review the Help area for the QuickBooks Web Connector File and a detailed walkthrough on syncing your contacts and invoices with Quickbooks. To learn more about money management, read our blog for specifics on how to effectively manage your money through your CRM!
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