Finance and invoicing

Three modules cover the money, all in chapter IV Partners: Finance Tracker is the ledger, Invoice Tracker is what has been billed and what has been paid, and Cash Flow is the forward view. They read the same records, so a figure that appears in more than one place is the same figure computed the same way — if two screens disagree, that is a bug worth reporting rather than a rounding difference.

This is your event's money. Your Accolade subscription is a different thing entirely and lives in Billing, upgrades, and invoices.

Before you start

• Your organisation's legal name, company number, VAT number and address, set in Setup → Settings & Branding → Organisation Profile. They appear on the paperwork.
• Your budget categories, so transactions can be filed as they arrive rather than sorted later.
• Your sponsors in the pipeline, if you are going to invoice them — see Sponsors and CRM.

1. Record the ledger

Finance Tracker → + Add Transaction. Each line carries Date, Description, Category, Type, Amount, Status and Reference, and the tabs split the same data into Overview, Income, Expenditure, Budget Allocation and Supplier Costs. Export CSV takes the lot out for your accountant.

Put the Reference in. It is what lets somebody match a line here to a bank statement six months later, and it is the field everyone leaves blank.

2. Raise and chase invoices

Invoice Tracker → + Create Invoice. The register shows Invoice #, Client/Vendor, Direction, Description, Amount, Issued, Due and Status, with tabs for All Invoices, Outgoing, Incoming and Overdue. Per row you get View, Edit and Mark Paid.

Direction matters: outgoing is money you are owed, incoming is money you owe a supplier. Mixing them is the fastest way to produce a net position that is wrong by twice the error. The Overdue tab computes Days Overdue for you — check it weekly rather than at month end.

3. Look forward

Cash Flow shows a month-by-month table of Opening, Income, Expenses, Net and Closing, with tabs for Forecast, Upcoming Payments and Receivables. Upcoming Payments lists Vendor, Amount, Due Date, Category and Urgency; Receivables lists Source, Type, Expected Date and Confidence. Record Payment takes Amount, Payment Date, Category, Reference, Payment Method and Notes; Reconcile and Mark Paid close the loop.

Set Confidence honestly on receivables. A forecast built on optimistic confidence is worse than no forecast, because somebody will commit to a venue deposit on the strength of it.

4. Where the money comes from

Ticket income arrives through Ticketing & Sales, which has its own Payment Settings — Payment Gateway, Stripe keys, Test Mode, Currency, Tax Rate (%), Auto-generate invoices, Refund Policy and Cancellation Cut-off. Sponsor income arrives through the pipeline. Both land in the same ledger, which is why the Finance figures should be read as one picture rather than three.

Leave Test Mode on until you have taken a test payment end to end, and check the Tax Rate before you sell the first ticket rather than after.

The figures you will be asked about

Money in, money out, net position and what is owed to you are computed from your own records — the same computation behind the Finance, Invoice and Cash Flow screens. "Owed to you" is invoiced minus collected, and the count of past-due invoices sits next to it. If a number looks wrong, open the module behind it rather than adjusting anything: these screens do not hold their own copy of the truth.

Common problems

• An invoice is marked paid but the ledger has not moved. Marking an invoice paid and recording the transaction are two actions. Use Record Payment in Cash Flow so both happen.
• The forecast ignores a large sponsor. The deal has no expected date, or its confidence is set low. Check Receivables.
• VAT is wrong on a document. Fix the VAT number in Organisation Profile and the Tax Rate in Ticketing, then regenerate — documents take the values as they stand when generated.
• Supplier costs are missing. They are entered as expenditure in the Finance Tracker and as incoming invoices; a supplier recorded in only one of the two will be under-counted.