If you require that your client make pre-payments prior to your issuing or approving project orders on a resale project type (billing type 1), you can use the Processing> Print Client Deposit Invoices function to invoice them for that amount.

Note that this function is used more often when a financial institution requires a detailed invoice prior to issuing funds to the client. If you are requiring pre-payments that are not related to specific orders and which will be handled by your own accounting system, the project deposit can be added to the FF&E Worksheet's "Quote/Contract" report format, using the "Total deposit required" option under "Report Options."

To begin, you need enter any client deposit requirements for the order (typically, as soon as you know the expected item amounts, freight quote and tax rate, based on the sell price.

Entering the deposit requirement for any order works best if you have also entered the tax rate and freight quote in those fields on the Order screen. The tax rate is normally copied automatically from the specification when an order is created (and the spec inherits it from the Project List screen entry).

Be sure to learn about the right-click and double-click shortcuts that are mentioned below.

Setting Up Deposit Requirements

In this context, your invoices for deposits only apply to a single purchase order and are entered directly on the Orders screen under "Client Deposit Requirements" in the lower right corner (that is, by using the Edit function). So the procedure would be:

1. Locate the order. If needed, use the Find tool at the bottom of the list and enter the order number for which the deposit is required. Ctrl-F is the hot key for the Find tool. Make sure the Orders List is sorted by PO # (if not, click on the heading of that column to sort it).
2. Click Edit or press Alt-E to edit the order (or, simply double-click on the "Vndr  Dep Inv #" box to trigger editing). If the "Client Deposit Requirements" section is not visible, be sure to toggle it using the display option at the bottom of the screen. You can also right-click the section title to switch between client and vendor deposits.

3. Enter the deposit requirements. If you are charging a standard percentage (e.g., 50%) of the order sell amounts, you can right-click in the "FF&E," "Tax" and "Freight" fields to automatically fill in the equivalent amount, or you can enter the amounts manually. For instance, to enter 50% of the merchandise deposit, right-click on that field and press 5.
   
   Once you select a percentage, you can double-click in the other deposit fields to automatically calculate them using the same percentage.

Note: The separate entries for freight and tax are for convenience in calculating individual components of the deposit (since you can right-click on them for common percentages). The "Total required" is a lump sum that is eventually applied to order items on a "first processed, first applied" basis, without regard for the type of expense.

4. Save the entries by clicking Save, pressing Alt-S, or pressing Ctrl-Enter.

Printing Client Deposit Invoices

After entering the required deposits, you can print a client deposit invoice, which updates the "Deposit Inv #" field with a document number. This is not required, but is recommended since it is part of the "official" documentation process for the amounts owed to you and may be required by a financial institution.

If you don't need to issue an actual invoice document, you can enter the deposit your client paid directly by editing the order again. Again, this may not be a good idea since it does not generate any documentation.

1. On the Orders List screen, locate the order for which you want to print an invoice. This is the normal first step, since it give you access to printing scopes for a single order, project, client or vendor. You can also set up a query prior to starting, which enables the use of the "current query" results. Note that the Processing  command is also available on the Expediting screen.
2. Select the Processing command. 
3. Select the Print Client Deposit Invoices tool. 
4. Select an appropriate scope of order items to process. If you were on the first eligible order, "this order only" will be the default scope. However, if you were on an order for which a deposit has been invoiced, that scope will be disabled since these cannot be processed.
5. Normally this function will include orders that have not been issued, however you can override that with the "Include orders that have been" option to include only orders that have been issued.
6. Enter any comment text needed for the items that will be processed. Comments are short notes that are specific to the invoices about to be printed, not general boilerplate. Comment text will be saved until you close the Orders List screen or change it manually.
7. If you have a custom invoice format, it will be selected automatically, but you can temporarily select the "standard" format if desired.
8. If you are generating an invoice as a backup for an invoice you plan to issue from your own accounting system, you may wish to select the "Invoicing backup format" option to adjust the labeling on the document.
9. If you have entered permanent boilerplate text for the invoice's "Notes" section, you need do nothing. If you need to add or edit the text, you can do so with the Edit "Note" Boilerplate button. Keep in mind that boilerplate text is saved and will apply to all future invoices, so use the "Comment" field instead for specific, temporary instructions to the payer.
10. If you need to, select an appropriate printer with Print Setup. Note that you cannot change the orientation or margins for any report formats, because they are integrated with what are often very tight layouts. If you have a "PDF" type of printer and select it, keep in mind that each invoice is a separate report, so you will be prompted for a PDF file name for each invoice.
11. (Optional) Select Preview/Draft preview invoices and print draft versions individually. Please note that the format will have the word "DRAFT" embedded in it when you use this option.
12. Select Print Final or click the [>PDF] button to send the final invoices to the selected destination.
13. If you performed Step 12, the system will prompt you to confirm that the documents printed correctly. If they did and you want to finalize the processing of the affected orders, answer "Yes" and the system will mark those orders with the invoice # on which the deposit was billed. If you don't, you will return to the Orders List and no data will have been changed. Do not distribute documents that were not marked as final!

You can review all invoices on the Invoices List screen, as well as reprint selected invoices there and, if eligible, void invoices that were incorrect.