We’ve added new month tags for use in recurring invoice line item descriptions for last month, current month, and next month.
The new tags are:
- {{last_month}}
- {{current_month}}
- {{next_month}}
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So these don’t work in the Notes section?
I swear that this tag: {{billing_period_range}} used to work in the notes, but hasn’t for some time now.
Tags don’t work in notes, but they will work in invoice templates and line item descriptions.
This is awesome. We bill in advance for monthly services and software licenses. This will eliminate a lot of questions. Thanks!
How does it output the data? “July 2023”, “July”, “2023-07” etc.?
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Depending on the output, this sounds great. I have many invoices generate on the 20th for the current month’s services. I haven’t been able to use variables up to now.
It’s just the month name. So {{next_month}} translates to “May.”
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This sounds wonderful!! As I like to say > it’s the little things!
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Thanks for this! Any way to put the year in too, “May 2023” instead of just “May”? This would help clarify invoices since I bill in arrears.
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I don’t think so as of now, but how would that help clarify? Or are you billing annually for something for some reason?
Since I bill in arrears, a specific month/year in the Invoice Name would avoid any confusion of the month that the invoice is associated with. My clients sometimes get confused and would input my invoices into the wrong month in their accounting system.
Currently it’s like this:
Invoice #: 12345
Invoice Date: 6/1/2023
Invoice Name: IT Services for Month Prior to Invoice Date
I would like this:
Invoice #: 12345
Invoice Date: 6/1/2023
Invoice Name: IT Services for May 2023
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Ok if it’s not related to annual billing I am still getting confused as to why the year would reduce confusion. It would outright say the month they are being billed form no?
“IT Services for May”
I think “May 2023” just looks better for an official bill. My internet bills, mortgage statements, vendor billing all show month/year, they wouldn’t look professional with just the month. Not sure how involved it could be, but it’d be nice to add the year.
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I’ll agree with that. Also, if a client is auditing and going through bills, they would only have to look at this one spot to know the date and year, vs having to also look at the date as well.
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Ok, but just confirming other than aesthetics there really isn’t a way customers receiving invoices are confused without the year, correct? I am just making sure I am not missing an obvious use case here.
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I should say yes to this but… you know… there are many things that people shouldn’t be confused about but are. Invoice Date is on the invoice, so they shouldn’t be, no. My only thought is that it would make it an easier read and a bit faster if they just looked at the description and knew the date and year without also looking at the Invoice Date field.
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Thinking this through end to end, the only reason you’d really need to know the year is if the customer was closing out their books, or auditing past years. In that case they’d need to rely on the invoice date for confirmations regardless vs text input as a line item to verify the date.
At any rate, we’ll monitor this to see if we get a lot of requests for it.
Exactly.
Many of us ARE working in relationships that are multiple years in length. I belive the reports we generate for a customer should have a similar naming convention.
Well I didn’t necessarily mean a multi-year contract, I meant if you are billing out for an entire year all in one shot. That would be pretty rare. Normally annual agreements are billed monthly.
Are you billing out things on an annual basis? Just curious.
Yes. Some things I do bill out, annually. Like Webhosting, domain name mgmt, etc.
Got it. So normally those aren’t covered in arrears, or else you wind up on the hook for items you are paying if the customer bails mid-contract.
I made a note and we can see about adding additional tags with the year included down the road.
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