Billing prerequisites

In order to use flowlog’s billing feature set there are a few prerequisites that we will be covering in this video.

First and foremost, you will need to create a set of books if you haven't already done so.

You will need to decide on whether you will use the cash or accrual accounting method for your set of books.

If you created a set of books before the billing feature set was implemented, you will need to edit your set of books, and select “cash” or “accrual” for the accounting method. Just be sure to click “save ->” before leaving the “Edit a Set of Books” page.

We will briefly cover both Cash and Accrual accounting methods later in this video. However, if you want a more comprehensive overview of these accounting methods I would check out the docs in the support section of flowlog.net. We also plan on demonstrating these methods, in depth, in some upcoming videos.

Next, you will need to set your Default Sales Tax Percent. This will be used if/when you choose to apply sales tax to an invoice. This rate can also be overridden in the Invoice Create form. If you don't think you will need to apply sales tax to an invoice, or you prefer to enter it anew for every invoice, then you can leave this unset.

If you want to give your customers the option to pay an invoice via flowlog, you will need to enter your Coinpayments.net Merchant id and IPN Secret, you will also need to select “coinpayments.net” as your Customer Invoice Payment Processor. We will be covering how to setup your Coinpayments.net account in another video.

I’ll now show you an example of what accounts are required for using the Billing features, whether you use the Cash or Accrual Accounting Method.

For the Accrual Accounting Method, you will, at minimum, need a Cash account, Accounts Receivable account, an Income account as well as an Accounts Payable and Expense account. I also set up a Bad Debt account, which is not mandatory to start using flowlog’s Billing features, but if you plan on using the Bad debt feature in flowlog, then this account will need to be created. For more info about the Bad Debt feature, please see the docs. We will also cover Bad Debt in another video.

If you are planning to use the Sales tax feature you will want to create the necessary Sales Tax account or accounts for that.

For the Cash Accounting Method, you will (at the very least), need a Cash and Income account, as well as an Expense account for Bills.

Once again, if you plan on using the Sales Tax feature then you will likely want to create an account for that, when setting up your books.

Once you set up your Chart of Accounts, you will need to set your Current Asset group and Current Liability group, so flowlog knows what accounts to use in the Invoice feature. This is already set for you if you created a set of books after the billing feature was implemented. To do this, just click “edit” for whichever group you want to set as your Current Asset group, and do the same for your Current Liability group. Obviously, the groups named Current Assets and Current Liabilities are the ones I’m going to set, but you may change the group names for your set of books, so what groups you choose to set as your Liability and Asset group could be different for you. Once you do these things, then you are good to go.

You will need to create Vendors and Customers in order to create Invoices and Bills, but we will cover that in another video.

Thanks for watching!