Billing History Box Updated December 08, 2023 22:40

Overview

The billing history box is found on the right side of a client page and contains records of the client's billing history, including their account balances as well as any invoices, deposits, and payments specific to that client. The billing history box also includes statuses of these items so you can see if a payment is pending, in dispute, or if an invoice has been paid. 

To view a client's billing history, go to their client profile. The billing history box appears on the right of the page below the last communication with that client. 

Invoices and payments

The billing history box is made up of payments (including deposits and refunds) and invoices that leave you with an account balance when added up. When all invoices have been paid in full, the account balance will be $0.00. If the client has overpaid, or they have paid a deposit where an invoice hasn't been generated for the remainder of the work, their account balance will be a negative number. If the client has outstanding invoices to be paid, the account balance will be a positive number where that is the total they owe you. 

In the billing history box, invoices that are Awaiting Payment will display in black text. Once an invoice is marked Paid, it will show a green "PAID" label to indicate that the invoice is in paid status. 

Note: The "PAID" label indicates that the invoice is in paid status, it doesn't necessarily mean that the invoice has a balance of $0.00 as it is possible to close an invoice and mark it as paid without recording a payment against it. 

Similarly, payments and deposits will also show in the billing history box. Once a payment or deposit has been applied to an invoice or quote, it will say which item it's applied to. Payments that are not applied to any invoice will show as "applied to account balance". Payments applied to the account balance can be edited later if they should be applied to a particular invoice.

Invoices that have been sent to the client and are now in "Awaiting Payment" status, show up in the billing history box. If an invoice is still in "Draft" status, it will show in a note will below the box and will not be counted in with the client's balance until it is sent to the client. Sending a draft invoice (either by text or email–or marking it as sent) is the action that moves a draft invoice to awaiting payment status. 

If your client has paid an invoice in client hub with Jobber Payments and left you a tip (nice work, by the way!) you will see the tip reflected in the billing history box as well. However, the tip does not count towards the account balance. So if a client has left a tip and paid all their invoices, the account balance will be $0.00.

Collect payment

Payments can be recorded from the billing history box. Click New > Collect Payment to enter the details of a payment you've received for this client. 

This is where you'll enter:

• The payment method
• Amount
• Transaction date
• Check number (if paying by check)
• Details

Click Save once you've entered all the payment details. Once a payment has been saved, it will be applied to the client's account balance. To apply this payment to an outstanding invoice, click the payment from the billing history box to edit it. There will be a dropdown for Applied to where you can apply this payment to an invoice.

Note: This is a record of a payment that you've already received. Cards cannot be charged from the billing history box. If a client is making a payment by card, they can pay online through client hub or you can collect their payment and enter their card details on an invoice. 

Record deposit

If you collect a deposit from a client who does not have a quote or invoice yet, you can record it directly from the billing history box on their client page. Click New > Record Deposit and enter the deposit details. Later, once an invoice has been created you can apply the deposit to the invoice so that your client can pay the remaining balance after the deposit.

Note: This is a record of a deposit that has already been paid, cards cannot be charged from the billing history box. If a client is paying their deposit by card, they would need to pay the deposit on a quote. Learn more about Quote Deposits and Jobber Payments.

If you want to record a credit on the client's account balance (for example, if they overpaid or purchased a gift card from you business), recording it as a deposit is often the best way to do this. In the future, when you have created an invoice for the client, you can apply the deposit towards the invoice balance.

Lump sum payments

Lump sum payments are useful in situations where clients want to pay off multiple outstanding invoices at once. 

To record a lump sum payment, go to the billing history box from the client page and click New > Collect Payment.

Then enter the payment:

After clicking Save, a pop-up will appear listing any invoices for this client that are "Awaiting Payment". You can choose to mark multiple invoices as "Paid" by selecting them from this list.

Note: Marking an invoice as paid does not apply the payment to that invoice balance, only to the client account balance. To update the invoice balance, you may wish to split up the payment and record it directly on the invoice. For example, if a client wrote you a check for $100 to cover two invoices for $50, you could enter a $50 payment on each invoice with the same check number and any other notes in the Details section of each payment. 

If you utilize the Taxation Report in Jobber, any lump sum transactions will appear as Unallocated on the Cash report - this means they haven't been applied to an invoice and so Jobber does not know which Tax to apply these funds to. The best way to prevent this is to manually split a lump sum payment and record it directly on each invoice it is meant to pay off.

Sending receipts

To view a receipt for a client, or to email them a receipt, click the Payment or Deposit from their Billing history. Click Email Receipt to send the client a copy. Click Download PDF to view the receipt.

Tip: If you are using Jobber Payments, your receipts for transactions paid by credit card might be set to sent automatically when a payment is made. You can check this setting by going to the Gear Icon > Settings > Jobber Payments > Preferences.

"New" button

Items that affect your client's account balance will automatically appear in the billing history box. However, you can also create new items directly from the billing history box by clicking New.

The items you can create are:

• Collect payment: This option is for creating a record of payment that you have received from this client. Enter the payment method (cash, check, credit card, bank transfer, money order, or other) as well as the payment amount, transaction date, and any other details. 
  
  • Note: It is not possible to charge a credit card through Jobber Payments from the billing history box. The credit card payment method does not charge your client. This option is for recording a credit card transaction that occurred outside of Jobber such as through a POS system. If you need to charge a client with Jobber Payments, that must be done from the invoice. Learn more about Collecting Payments on Invoices.
• Record deposit: This is for recording a deposit that you have received from this client. Enter the payment method (cash, check, credit card, bank transfer, money order, or other) as well as the deposit amount, transaction date, and any other details. 
  • Note: Deposits cannot be collected through the billing history box through Jobber Payments. To charge a client's credit card, the deposit must be collected from the quote. Learn more about Quote Deposits and Jobber Payments.
• Create a new invoice: Generate an invoice for this client. If the client has any outstanding work that has not been invoiced for yet, you will be prompted to select any jobs you'd like to add to the invoice. If you want to create an invoice from scratch that doesn't reflect any ongoing work, skip selecting any jobs and click Next Step.  
• Generate a statement: The statement is a reflection of the client's account balance showing invoices as well as any deposits or payments. 
• Set an initial balance: This option is for adding an account balance for the client. You might choose this option if you are coming over from another software where the client has an outstanding balance that you would like to reflect in Jobber. 

Statements

A statement of the client's account balance can be generated from their billing history box. To generate a statement, navigate to the client's profile from Jobber.com then scroll to their billing history. Then click New > Statement from the top right corner of their billing history box. 

There are several date ranges that can be selected for the statement:

• Client Lifetime: This is the entire client's billing history
• Since Last Zero Balance: This will show a report that shows the client statement since the last recorded 0 balance
• Pick a Start Time: This will show a report from a selected point in time onwards

To preview the statement, select Download/Preview. To email the client a statement, select Email to Client. The email template that is sent along with the attached statement can be edited from Settings > Emails and Text Messages under the heading for General. 

The statement has columns that reflect:

• Date: This is the transaction date of the payment or invoice.
• Description: A description of what this transaction is (for example, the invoice number or if a payment was received and which invoice it was applied towards).
• Amount: The invoice balance.
• Payment: The payment total.
• Tip: If a tip was left, this column reflects the tipped amount.
  
  • Note: Tips were released on December 6, 2021 so this column will show $0.00 for any payments prior to that since the functionality did not exist in Jobber at that time. 
• Balance: Overall account balance at that point in time, including this transaction. 

Note: The statement is a reflection of the client's current balance. It is not possible to make a payment towards a statement if the client has an outstanding balance. If the client owes a balance, they will need to make payments on any outstanding invoices.

The order that transactions appear on the statement can be managed from the Gear Icon > Work Settings. Learn more about Work Settings. 

Set initial balance

You can set Initial Balances for clients who have outstanding amounts due when you start using Jobber.

To set a client's Initial Balance, click New > Set Initial Balance.

You can then enter the amount they owe and click Save.

Apply payments

Payments in the billing history box can be edited to move a payment from one invoice (or the account balance) to another invoice.

Payments that are associated with an invoice—or, applied payments—will say which invoice they are attached to. Un-applied payments—not attached to an invoice—show up as "applied to account balance".

After clicking on the un-applied payment, a pop-up will appear where you can select the drop-down menu beside Applied to to change the designation for the payment.

Then, click Update.  Now the payment will show in the billing history box as being applied to the newly selected invoice. 

If the invoice you applied the payment to is now fully paid and has an invoice balance of $0.00, you'll need to go to the invoice to close it out. Navigate to the invoice and click More Actions > Close Invoice > Without Recording a Payment. The invoice status will now switch to "Paid". 

Note: If you are using Jobber Payments, the payment cannot be moved between invoices in order to preserve the original transaction details for the Jobber Payments reporting. 

Edit or delete items 

Beyond where the invoice is applied, other fields in the payment details can be edited by clicking the payment from the billing history box. These fields are:

• The payment method
• Amount
• Applied to
• Transaction date
• Details

Once you've made your changes, click Update to save.

To delete a payment, deposit, or initial balance, click on it in the billing history box. Then, from the details pop-up click Delete. Keep in mind, once this has been deleted it cannot be retrieved.

Note: If you are using Jobber Payments, some details might not be editable in order to preserve the original transaction details for the Jobber Payments reporting. Jobber Payments cannot be deleted. Learn how to refund a Jobber Payment.