QQ for thems on FreeAgent

[ladymuck]

There's a function called Projects and allocate sales invoices, expenses etc to it to track your profitability. There's also a function called Estimates so you can send out quotes, have them approved and then simply turn them into genuine invoices once the clients agree on it.

Essentially, I want to keep a tally of invoices against a purchase order so I know how much is left on it without keeping track in a separate spreadsheet.

Will using Projects do that? I don't care about tracking profitability.

Can Estimates allow me to send out invoices of a smaller value than the quote - so I can 'draw down' on the quote and see what's left to be invoiced?

[northernladuk]

Essentially, I want to keep a tally of invoices against a purchase order so I know how much is left on it without keeping track in a separate spreadsheet.

Will using Projects do that? I don't care about tracking profitability.

Can Estimates allow me to send out invoices of a smaller value than the quote - so I can 'draw down' on the quote and see what's left to be invoiced?

Have you tried turning it off and on?

[ladymuck]

Have you tried turning it off and on?

Actually, I do need to do that - an unsuccessful installation of Project seems to have completely screwed up my Office installation.

[ladymuck]

Essentially, I want to keep a tally of invoices against a purchase order so I know how much is left on it without keeping track in a separate spreadsheet.

Will using Projects do that? I don't care about tracking profitability.

Can Estimates allow me to send out invoices of a smaller value than the quote - so I can 'draw down' on the quote and see what's left to be invoiced?

I have tested both in Sage while on another pointless client call, and SageOne can't do it. I have sent them feedback which, from experience, will be ignored.

[ladymuck]

Having had a play with a Xero demo company, they don't do a purchase order in the way I want it to work either.

Essentially, their PO's are for MyCo issuing a PO against which I expect to receive a bill.

Need to dig around a bit more to see if any accounting package will allow me to manage Purchase Orders issued by my customers against which I will invoice. Seems like a gap in the market...

[SimonMac]

Does FA have a facility to create a purchase order and you assign invoices to it, thus keeping easy track of what's left?

I've been on Sage One for years now and the closest it has is to create a quote but I'm not sure if you can assign invoices to it that are less than the value of the quote (and they don't give you a sandbox environment to play around with such concepts). I suspect that's a feature available in Sage 50 that's more professional focussed, and more expensive.

I always like to suss out the alternatives when it comes around to year end so a feature like that would be useful.

TIA

You can have one estimate, which you turn into one invoice, and then have multiple payments on that single invoice which will give you a running total of what is still outstanding (but the total amount will be classed as invoiced so not sure if that is what you want or not)

[SimonMac]

Essentially, I want to keep a tally of invoices against a purchase order so I know how much is left on it without keeping track in a separate spreadsheet.

Will using Projects do that? I don't care about tracking profitability.

Can Estimates allow me to send out invoices of a smaller value than the quote - so I can 'draw down' on the quote and see what's left to be invoiced?

You can set the budget of a project, and any invoices raised against that project is also tallied up, however I can't see a box where it takes one number way from the other

[ladymuck]

You can have one estimate, which you turn into one invoice, and then have multiple payments on that single invoice which will give you a running total of what is still outstanding (but the total amount will be classed as invoiced so not sure if that is what you want or not)

I think the effect of that will be one huge invoice created that I can't send to the client, so I'd have to create client acceptable invoices in another system and track those separately.

[ladymuck]

Having had a play with a Xero demo company, they don't do a purchase order in the way I want it to work either.

Essentially, their PO's are for MyCo issuing a PO against which I expect to receive a bill.

Need to dig around a bit more to see if any accounting package will allow me to manage Purchase Orders issued by my customers against which I will invoice. Seems like a gap in the market...

It looks like Xero will allow multiple invoices against a single Quote (something SageOne can't do) but I need to see if I can overwrite the Quote reference with the Client's PO reference. I could probably type it in somewhere as I raise the invoice but the whole point of automation is to avoid that kind of nonsense!

EDIT: Nope, no good. Xero doesn't deduct the value of the invoice from the balance remaining on the Quote so you still have to keep a tally of how much is left.

How hard can this be?

[malvolio]

I think the effect of that will be one huge invoice created that I can't send to the client, so I'd have to create client acceptable invoices in another system and track those separately.

Or you raise both estimates and staged invoices against the project budget...?