Retainer Invoices
A lot of businesses collect an advance payment (or retainer) for the products sold or services rendered by them. This amount collected will not be an income but a liability to the company. The revenue is earned only when the product is delivered or the service is completed, if not delivered or completed the advance payment made will be returned to the customer.
If you’ve enabled Retainer Invoices for your organization, you will see the Retainer Invoice module on the sidebar. If not, you can enable this module under Preferences by navigating to Gear icon -> More Settings -> Preferences and selecting the checkbox against Retainer Invoices.
Lifecycle of Retainer Invoices
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
| Draft | Retainer Invoices when created will be in Draft status before being sent to the customer. |
| Sent | Retainer Invoices once sent to the customers will be changed to Sent status. |
| Paid | Once your customers make payment for the retainer invoices raised, the status of the retainer invoice will be changed to Paid. |
| Partially Drawn | When you use a part of the retainer amount towards an invoice, the status of the retainer invoice will be changed to Partially Drawn. |
| Drawn | When the full retainer amount is used towards an invoice, the status of the retainer invoice will be changed to Drawn. |
Create & Send Retainer Invoices
This section will help you in understanding how you can enable, create and send retainer invoices to your customers in Zoho Invoice.
Collecting Retainer from Estimates
You can collect retainer or advance payment from your customers from the estimate you send them using Customer Portal.
Collecting and Recording Offline Retainer Payments
Record the retainer received from your customer by cash, check or bank transfer.
Manual Charging for Retainer Invoice
Manually charge your customer with an already saved card or with a temporary card.
Applying a Retainer to Invoice
After the product is delivered or service is rendered, apply the retainer invoice to the final invoice before sending them to the customer. You can also split up and apply the retainer amount to multiple invoices or apply multiple retainer amounts to a single invoice.
Retainer Invoice in Projects
Create retainer invoices and apply them to invoices directly from the projects module in Zoho Invoice.
Reports
Generate and view reports for all the retainer transactions and refunds.
More with Retainer Invoices
Record any retainer refunds that has been made to your customer.
