On this tab, you can see and manage the reseller’s invoices: invoices already generated and those under review.
Invoice search
Specify one or more search criteria and click Search. If you want to stop the search, press “Esc” on the keyboard or click Stop .
Click Default filters to reset the search criteria to their initial values. To refresh the search results, click Search.
Invoice number
Find the invoice by its number. The minimum value is 1.
Status
Find an invoice by its status:
- Any – search for all invoices, regardless of their status.
- Generated – filter already generated invoices.
- Under review – filter the invoices that require your review and approval. You can correct any errors during the review before the reseller receives their invoice.
Issued period
Find invoices for a specific period. Click Calendar
to select the period, or manually enter the dates in “YYYY-MM-DD” format.
Covering the date
Specify the exact date here. The system will show invoices from the corresponding billing period. You can either enter the date manually in “YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm” format or click Calendar
to select the date and time.
Include void invoices
Select the checkbox to view the void invoices.
Invoice list
Each entry in the issued invoices list consists of:
Status
This is the invoice payment status (for already generated invoices) or review status (for invoices that require your approval). See the descriptions of possible statuses below.
No.
This is the invoice sequence number. Click on it to download the invoice .pdf file.
Actions
You can click Action menu
and select the invoice management options:
Period
This is the start and end of the billing period. Customers with a daily billing period will see only one date in this field, e.g., 2023-07-05.
Issue date
This is the date the invoice was created.
Due date
This is the due date of the invoice.
Period total
This is the total amount of the invoice, which includes all charges for the current billing period.
Paid amount
This is the total amount of payments made by the customer during the current billing period.
The color of the numbers in this column corresponds to the invoice status (e.g., green means “paid in full”, orange – “partially paid”, and gray is used for invoices “under review”).
If no invoices were generated in the previous billing periods (e.g., invoicing has been disabled for a customer due to human error), and the customer made a payment that covered charges from those billing periods, the displayed value will include that paid amount. In this case, you will see the value underlined with dots. You can hover over it to see the corresponding tooltip.
Adjustments
This is the total of transactions that adjust (decrease or increase) the customer balance during the current billing period:
- Balance adjustments made by the administrator on the customer panel – charges, promotional credits, refunds, etc. See the Adjust customer balance handbook for more information on transaction types.
- Adjustments made by the administrator after the invoice is created. See how to adjust an invoice below.
Outstanding balance
This is the amount the customer must pay to cover the current invoice in full (Period total minus Paid amount and Adjustments by default).
If no invoices were generated in the previous billing periods (e.g., invoicing has been disabled for a customer due to human error), the customer may already have accumulated an outstanding balance during that time. In this case, the displayed value will include the owed amounts from previous billing periods. You will see the value underlined with dots and can hover over it to see the corresponding tooltip.
The color of the numbers in this column corresponds to the invoice status (e.g., green means “paid in full”, orange – “partially paid”, and gray is used for invoices “under review”).
Sent
Shows whether the invoice was sent to the customer.
Invoice statuses
These are the possible statuses that can be displayed for generated invoices and for invoices under review.
Statuses for generated invoices
- Unpaid – this is the invoice status upon generation. If there are previous unpaid invoices, the customer must pay the total amount due from those invoices plus this invoice total to make this invoice paid in full.
- Paid – the invoice is paid in full (if there are any previous unpaid invoices, the payment covers them first).
- Partially paid – the payment received doesn’t fully cover the invoice total. The partially paid status changes to Paid (if the customer pays in full) or Overdue (if the invoice is still not paid in full on the day following the due date).
- Overdue – the invoice is not paid by the due date. The due date is the date by which payment is expected. The day following the due date, the unpaid or partially paid invoice is considered overdue. An overdue invoice status can trigger system actions for payment collection that are already configured in the customer class (re-sending the invoice to the customer, service limitation, customer suspension, commitment termination, and customer termination).
- Do not pay – the invoice total is either zero (e.g., the customer didn’t use the service) or negative (e.g., the customer received a promotional credit that was higher than their actual service usage), and there is no unpaid balance from previous invoices (otherwise the status is Previous balance remaining). The customer doesn’t have to make any payments, and the invoice is produced for the customer’s reference only.
- Previous balance remaining – although this invoice has a zero (or negative) invoice total, when combined with the invoice total from earlier invoices, there is still an outstanding balance. The customer must make a payment, which will be applied to the earlier invoices. After the previous balance is paid in full, the status of this invoice is Do not pay.
Statuses for invoices under review
If you want to review and approve invoices before sending them to your customers, enable this option for the specific customer class (Customer class > Invoicing > Regular invoices > Send the invoice via email > select After review and approval by admin).
- Under review – the invoice is created, but it’s not yet sent to the customer pending your approval. You can review the invoice and either approve it or make corrections first. For example, you can manually adjust the invoice total (the transaction will be included in the current invoice, the invoice .pdf file will be re-generated) or re-issue the invoice (the re-issue task recalculates the invoice charges, payments, refunds, taxes, invoice total, etc., and re-generates the invoice .pdf file). See more details on invoice management options below.
- Approved – the invoice has just been approved. Once the Approved status changes to Paid or Unpaid, the invoice is automatically sent to the customer.
- Being reissued – this status appears when the admin marks an invoice for reissue. The admin can choose to reissue the invoice immediately or during the next off-peak period, since the process may place a significant load on the system. While the invoice is being reissued, it cannot be downloaded, and key attributes (such as the issue date, due date, period total, paid amount, and outstanding amount) are temporarily hidden. Once reissued, the invoice automatically returns to the “Under review” status for reapproval.
Note that the period for reviewing the invoice can be limited by the customer class (the number of days specified in the Hold for review field). If you don’t review the invoice during this period, it’s auto-approved by PortaBilling and sent to the customer automatically.
Manage invoices
To manage a specific invoice, select an invoice and click the Action menu
.
To manage several invoices, select them from the list and choose the available action from the toolbar.
Download an invoice
You can download an invoice .pdf file in one of these ways:
Void an invoice
When you void an invoice, the system marks it as voided in the PDF file, generates a corrected invoice automatically, and notifies the customer by email. The original invoice is kept for audit purposes.
To void an invoice:
- select one or more invoices and click Void on the toolbar; or
- hover over a specific invoice, click the Action menu, and select Void.
When you void an invoice:
- All subsequent invoices for this customer are voided as well.
- The corrected invoices get new numbers.
- When an invoice with adjustments is voided, the adjustment amount is credited back to the customer’s balance. The reissued invoice shows the original amount due.
Re-generate PDF
You can re-generate.pdf files for already generated invoices. This can be useful if you have made changes to the invoice template, or if a certain customer or company information has been changed. Note that the Re-generate PDF action doesn’t affect any billing data. It only re-creates the invoice .pdf file with updated layouts, fonts, images, and customer and/or company information. To re-generate the invoice:
Approve invoices
This option is only available when invoices with the Under review status are selected. If you have reviewed the invoice and it’s correct, you can approve it so it is automatically sent to the customer via email. To approve the invoice:
Re-issue invoices
You can re-issue an invoice that’s under review, for example, if you need to update the invoice template and/or recalculate billing amounts (charges, payments, refunds, invoice total, etc.).
To re-issue an invoice, click Action menu
and click Re-issue. In the Invoice re-issue dialog, specify whether you want to process this invoice now or during the nearest off-peak period and click Re-issue.
Once the invoice is re-issued, its status is Under review again, and the invoice is available for re-approval.
Adjust an invoice
You can adjust regular invoices with a paid, unpaid, or overdue status. To adjust a specific invoice, hover over it, click Action menu
, and click Adjust . In the Invoice adjustment dialog, specify:
- Adjustment – specify the amount to decrease the reseller’s outstanding balance. It must not exceed the Period total amount.
- Internal comment – type an internal comment on this transaction. It isn’t visible on the xDR panel and is accessible only from the database directly.
- Comment visible to the end user – type a comment on this transaction that’s visible to the end user on the xDR panel.
- Click Adjust in the dialog to complete the task.
When you’re done, click Adjust. The adjustment amount reduces the paid amount and decreases the outstanding balance. The adjustment doesn’t change the invoice period total. The transaction itself will be included in the next invoice.
Customize the panel
- Change table settings – click Settings
in the title bar to customize columns, change row style, or reset table settings.
- Re-order the columns – drag-and-drop the column headers right or left to place the columns in the order you want.
- Re-order the rows – click the arrow
(or
) next to the column header to re-sort the rows. For example, the invoices panel displays invoices in chronological order, starting from the newest one. You can re-sort them in reverse order.
- Change the default number of results globally – use the Number of results dropdown list in the bottom-right corner to adjust the maximum number of rows that appear on the panel. By default, the panel displays 25 rows. Once the number is changed, it’s automatically saved, so the same number of rows is shown for PortaBilling entities, e.g., customer, account, reseller, etc.
