Billing and payments
Invoicing happens after closing, and collecting happens next month
The day belongs to the vehicles, so the paperwork waits, and every day it waits is a day the money is somewhere else. Close the work order and the invoice is built from it, with the hours, the parts and the fees on their own lines.
- From Work order 1042, closed
- Labour 2.5 sold hours
- Parts Pads and rotors, from stock
- Status Finalized, awaiting payment
- Payment request Sent through Stripe, paid on Stripe's page
- Balance $0.00
- Status now Paid
A payment request is a tap by a person. Nothing goes out when the invoice is finalized.
What it is costing you
Your Sunday night is a line item
You are financing your customers, and paying overtime to do it. There is no statistic on this page. Ask your team.
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How many hours after close go to retyping work orders into invoices?
That is the Sunday night, and it is paid for.
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How many invoices are sitting unpaid because sending them was a chore?
You are financing your customers.
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How many hours on a job were never billed because nobody wrote them down?
A forgotten clock is work given away.
One invoice, from the closed job to the aged balance
Six moments where the money slows down, and what MecanoPro does at each.
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Close the job
The invoice is built from the work order
Close & Invoice makes one new open invoice from the jobs that are approved, in progress or done. Labour, parts, sublet work and fees come across as their own lines, and a part linked to a catalogue item stays under its line.
- It is a draft until someone presses Finalize Invoice, which locks the lines, takes the stock off and, with Accounting, posts it to the books.
- A work order closes once, into one invoice, and a visit with nothing to bill closes without one.
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The hours
Hours measured, not guessed at
Technicians clock on and off each job, and you choose whether to bill sold hours, the flat rate, or clocked hours. Job Margin sets the sold hours against the clocked ones, so a job that ran over shows while it is running.
- A single stretch counts for at most twelve hours, so a forgotten clock cannot invent a day.
- The Technician Efficiency report totals clocked, sold and available hours for each person, with a CSV export.
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Send it
Out the door the day the work is done
Once finalized, send the invoice with Email Invoice as a PDF, or Send Invoice by SMS. The text carries a link to an online copy that needs no sign-in. The Email & Text History panel shows when it went, to whom, who pressed send, and whether the email was opened.
- The PDF is in English or French, chosen by whoever sends it. A text needs text messaging connected and a mobile number on the contact.
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Get paid
Cash, card, or a payment request
Collect Payment records cash, a cheque or any method you set up, as a payment or a deposit, with the amount starting at the full balance. For a card, send a Stripe payment request: Stripe sends the customer an invoice they pay on its own page, in their language. Or charge a card they have saved with you.
- A payment can be less than the balance, so it can be partial, and one that is more shows as Overpaid. A deposit is a payment type, with a Deposit Receipt PDF you can print.
- A card that asks for 3D Secure cannot be charged unattended, so send a payment request instead and the customer confirms it themselves.
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At the counter
The customer is standing there with a card
Charge on Terminal sends the balance to a Moneris terminal at your counter. The window opens with the balance filled in, and you can change the amount when the card is only paying part of the sale. Credit and Interac both go through it.
- An administrator registers each terminal once, with a name, the device ID Moneris knows it by and the counter it sits on, so the person charging picks the one the customer is standing at. Two terminals cannot share a device ID.
- The payment lands on the invoice as money received, under one of two built-in methods, Moneris Terminal Credit or Moneris Terminal Interac, and the balance and the status update by themselves.
- Terminal Batches shows what each terminal took, by day and by the batch number it closed under, with the number of transactions, the total and what has been refunded, so you can match it to the slip the terminal prints.
- Charging on a terminal is its own right, Can Process Terminal Payments, so the people who take cards are the people you chose.
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Outstanding
What is owed, and for how long
An invoice moves from Finalized, Awaiting Payment to Partially Paid, Paid or Overpaid, and a red Overdue tag with the number of days past due appears when it is late. The invoice list has tiles for Total Outstanding and Past Due Invoices.
- For administrators, Analytics shows receivables aging, from Not yet due to Over 90 days, and the average days to payment.
- Payment reminders can go out from 14 days before the due date to 60 days after, by email, text or both, in the customer's language, with an off switch on each invoice.
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Afterwards
Paid, refunded, and asked for a review
When an invoice reaches Paid, a review request can go to the customer three days later, to your Google page or to your own site, and not again for 180 days. A card refund goes back to the card through Stripe.
- With Accounting, invoices and payments post to the books as they happen, so month end is a review and not a re-entry exercise.
Where it stops and you start
Getting paid is part software and part habit. Here is what MecanoPro leaves to you.
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Online, a card is a request, not a button
There is no pay button on the invoice link, the text link or the client portal. Online, a card goes through a Stripe payment request that someone sends, or a saved card that someone with the right charges. It needs a Stripe account connected. Moneris is for the counter terminal only.
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Moneris is switched on for the whole system
Terminal payments depend on a Moneris connection set up once for your system, with the store ID, the API token and whether it is test or live. Until it is, the Terminals screens, the two Moneris payment methods and the Charge on Terminal button are all hidden. If you expected them, ask whoever looks after your system.
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No staged invoice, no statements
A work order closes once, into one invoice. A deposit or a partial payment is recorded against it, but MecanoPro does not work out a deposit percentage, invoice a job in parts or produce a customer statement. The only receipt is a Deposit Receipt PDF you print.
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Reminders start switched off
Payment reminders and review requests are scheduled tasks you switch on. A reminder never goes out on the day you finalize, it can be up to two days late, it carries only a link to view the invoice, and a text needs text messaging connected.
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A refund is the whole payment
A cash or cheque refund is only recorded. A card refund goes back through Stripe, which can sit pending for days, or is reversed on the terminal. An Interac payment cannot be refunded from the software: the customer's card has to be presented at the terminal, and you record a manual refund so the books balance. If a terminal does not confirm a reversal, check it before you try again.
The shops that get paid at pickup stopped doing invoices on Sunday
Bring one finished job. We will take it from the work order to a paid invoice in front of you, and you can decide whether Sunday is worth keeping.
See it running on your own work orders
Thirty minutes, at a time that suits the shop. We load a few of your real jobs in and you tell us where it would break.