Xero Single Invoice Setup

In Plain English

The flow works as follows.

1. Create the Booking.

2. Add the products that the customer is billed for.

Products can be added exclusive or inclusive of tax.

Each product has a Name, detailed description (optional but can be useful to highlight what is included in a Package etc.), tax rate (tax rates are imported from the connected Xero account), Account Code (Account Codes are imported from connected Xero account), Tracking Code (Tracking Codes are imported from connected Xero account), Quantity and Unit Price.

3. Add your Payment Plan / Payment Schedules to the Booking.

A Payment Plan is a collection of Payment Schedules (you might have a different Plan for Weddings compared to Corporate Events). You set them up in settings, this is covered in the training videos.
Payment Schedules specify on what date a payment is due and can include an auto notification to remind a customer that a payment is due in the next X days.

Recording Payments for events booked a long time out (1, 2, etc. years in advance):

When the payments are recorded, BriteBiz will record the Payment in Xero as a Prepayment (unreconciled). These prepayments will be assigned to an Account Code (usually a Current Liability Code so that the payment is put on the Balance Sheet) and will have a tax rate, so that tax can be paid when the payment is received. If no tax is due when the payment is received, the tax rate can be 0%. You can set a default for the Account Code and tax rate, so they don't have to be entered on each payment.

Once all payments have been received or the Booking is complete, the invoice is created in BriteBiz and sent to Xero. The products on the booking will be the line items on the Invoice. The prepayments on the booking will be automatically allocated to the invoice which will leave the invoice with a zero balance (if all payments have been received). When the prepayments are allocated to the invoice, the revenue recorded against the Prepayments Account code will be moved to the Sales Account Codes (the invoice line items), so this moves the money recorded on the Balance Sheet to the P&L.

Corporate or Events that are booked with a short lead in time:

You create the Invoice at the time of booking as corporate customers will require an invoice.

When Payments are recorded, they will be created in Xero as a payment on the Invoice (there is no need to use a prepayment in this case).

Bank Reconciliation:

You will do your Bank reconciliation in Xero as normal. All Invoice Payments and Prepayments recorded can be matched against items from your Bank statement. When BriteBiz records a Payment or Prepayment it is always marked as not reconciled.

Each night, BriteBiz will do a Payments sync (updated payments are imported from Xero) and will mark any payments in BriteBiz as reconciled if they have been reconciled in Xero. Not reconciled payments in BriteBiz are marked with an (!) exclamation mark and Reconciled Payments are marked with a green tick. You can also manually pull payments in. The flow table on the support page I sent gives more details. This flow is also covered in the training videos.

Notes:

To confirm, if the booking doesn't have an invoice, payments will be recorded in Xero as Prepayments. If a booking has an unpaid invoice, Payment will be recorded directly against the invoice.

BriteBiz is built in a very unique way for venue and event companies. Prepayments are used as you can't edit an invoice in Xero once a Payment has been applied.

You can also create multiple Invoices on a BriteBiz Booking, as there will be times when additional items are ordered after an invoice is fully paid.

To watch this Single Invoice flow in a video go here - training videos.