Note: This section will be covering up front billing for Lessons - if you aren't going to bill your Clients up front, you can skip this step.
If you want to facilitate payment for this Lesson up front, you can do so via Credit Requests. Open the 'Accounting' tab of the accordion menu.
The 'Accounting' section of the accordion menu.
From here, open the Draft Credit Requests page.
The Draft Credit Requests page.
Next, select the Regenerate button to open the 'Regenerate Credit Requests' panel.
The 'Regenerate Credit Requests' panel.
From here, you can specify a date range - we're going to want to specify a date range that our planned Lesson(s) fall in. When we click Regenerate, TutorCruncher is going to find any Lessons marked as 'Planned' that are scheduled within our specified date range and generate Credit Requests for those Lessons. Click Regenerate to begin this process.
Note: Credit Requests are essentially 'pro forma' Invoices; they are Invoices for services that have not yet been rendered.
The Draft Credit Requests page after regenerating Credit Requests.
You can select the relevant Credit Request from the 'Draft Credit Requests' list to view its items.
Viewing our Credit Request.
You can then select the Confirm button at the top of the page to confirm the Credit Request.
The Draft Credit Requests page with a confirmed Credit Request.
Note: Multiple Credit Requests can be confirmed in bulk using the checkboxes next to their items in the draft list.
If you're happy with the confirmed Credit Request, click the Raise Confirmed Credit Request button to open the 'Raise Confirmed Credit Request' panel, from where you will be asked if you want to notify the recipients via email. Click Raise Credit Requests to raise the Credit Request.
Raising a confirmed Credit Request.
Once the Credit Request has been raised, you will be redirected to the Raised Credit Requests page.
The Raised Credit Requests page.
Here you can select your Credit Request by selecting its ID from the list.
The raised Credit Request.
You can click on the email address found in the 'Related Emails' section to view the Payment Request email that was sent to the Client. You can also mark the Credit Request as 'Paid' via the Mark as Paid button.
Marking the Credit Request as 'Paid'.
The Credit Request will now be marked as 'Paid'.
Note: When a Credit Request is paid, the credit will not automatically be allocated to the Lesson that the Credit Request was covering. Instead, it will be stored as credit on the Client's account. To mark this credit off the Client's balance against the Lesson, we need to draft and raise an Invoice for that Lesson. To find out how to do this, read on below.
Now that the Lesson has been paid for up front, we need to log the Lesson in TutorCruncher once it's taken place and raise an Invoice for it so that the Client's credit can be allocated to the Lesson.
Firstly, you will need to navigate back to the Lesson's page and mark it as 'Complete' so that it will be picked up when we generate our Invoices.
Click the Complete button to mark the Lesson as 'Complete'.
You will be prompted to confirm that you want to mark the Lesson as 'Complete' before being redirected to fill in a Lesson Report. Fill in the report (or skip it) to log the Lesson.
Our completed Lesson.
Next, navigate to Draft Invoices within the 'Accounting' section of the accordion menu.
The Draft Invoices page.
Select the Regenerate button at the top to open the 'Generate' panel.
Regenerating Invoices.
Specify a date range that covers when the Lesson took place and click Regenerate. TutorCruncher will then look through all Lessons marked as 'Complete' within the specified date range and generate Invoices for those Lessons.
The Draft Invoices page now showing a drafted Invoice for our previously-created Lesson.
Note: As a Credit Request had previously been raised to pay for this Lesson, the Invoice has been labelled as being 'Fully Paid' - if you had not done this step, then the Invoice won't have this label.
Click on the Invoice's recipient in the list to view the Invoice items.
Viewing the drafted Invoice.
Click the Confirm Invoice button to confirm the Invoice.
The Draft Invoices page showing our confirmed Invoice.
If you're happy with the Invoice, you can click Raise Confirmed Invoice(s) button to open the 'Raise Confirmed Invoice(s)' panel, from where you will be asked if you want to notify the recipients via email. Click Raise Invoices to raise the Invoice.
Raising a confirmed Invoice.
Once the Invoice is raised, you will then be redirected to the Raised Invoices page.
The Raised Invoices page.
You can view the Invoice by selecting its ID from the list.
Viewing the raised Invoice.
You can click on the email address found in the 'Related Emails' section to view the Payment Request email that was sent to the Client. In this particular example, we already raised a Credit Request for this Invoice which was used to automatically pay the Invoice, so we can only refund this particular Invoice.
Viewing an unpaid raised Invoice.
However, if the Invoice was not paid using preexisting credit (as in the example above) you can use the buttons above the Invoice to mark the Invoice as being paid from credit, take a manual payment, take a card payment, send a reminder, or cancel the Invoice altogether.
Taking a manual payment for an Invoice.
Click Save and the Invoice will be marked as 'Paid'.