A distinction is made between two types of “manual invoicing”:
Manual approval of invoicing, where Iteras only issues the invoice when it is manually triggered by a user;
Manual delivery of an invoice, which occurs when Iteras is unable to deliver the invoice automatically.
Manual approval can be enabled for the entire account, which is most commonly done during migration to Iteras. You can also choose to require manual approval before invoicing for specific subscriptions or business policies, for example if you negotiate pricing annually with a large customer.
Manual invoice delivery for a customer typically occurs when required information is missing from the customer data, such as email or address. You can also set the invoicing method on a subscription to “Manual” if, for example, you only have a few customers abroad and it is easier to print and send the invoice yourself.
Both types can occur even if the account is set to fully automatic invoicing. It is therefore recommended to regularly check whether any invoices have appeared that need to be issued or sent manually.
If an invoice has not been sent to the subscriber, the automatic handling of reminders and any suspension or termination will also not be initiated.
Both types can be found under the same menu item in Iteras. To access manual invoicing, click “Subscribers” in the left-hand menu and then select “Manual invoicing.”
You will find four options in the horizontal menu on the page:
Invoice subscriptions manually (approval of invoicing)
Under the “Invoice subscriptions manually” tab, you will find all subscriptions that are ready for invoicing. Here, you can review the invoice content before it is sent and then approve the invoicing.
This view also shows subscriptions that are invoiced via “Manual,” typically because no invoicing methods can be used to send the invoice. In such cases, you should investigate what is preventing automatic invoicing and consider whether the subscription should be suspended or terminated.
Select the business entity for which you want to view pending invoices, and optionally apply additional filters in the other fields. Once you have configured the desired settings, click the “Show” button.
You will then see a list of invoices that must be approved before they are issued.
You can view the individual invoices by clicking the invoice icon on the far left, or open the subscriber by clicking the blue text with the customer number and name if you need more information. You can also click the subscription name to see which specific subscription the invoice belongs to.
Once you have reviewed the invoices on the list to ensure they are correct, and made any necessary adjustments to the subscription or campaign, you can select them using the checkbox on the left.
If you check the box at the top (in line with the table headers), all invoices in the list will be selected:
Whether you choose to approve all or only selected invoices, you must then scroll to the bottom of the page and click the “Create invoices for selected subscriptions” button in the bottom right corner.
Afterwards, a banner will appear at the top of the page showing how many invoices have been issued. If any errors occur, an error message will be displayed here.
Overdue invoices (approval of reminders)
Under the “Overdue invoices” tab, you will find all unpaid invoices that are ready for reminders. See the article on reminder settings.
Typically, no invoices will appear here unless you have specifically configured in the business policy that reminders must be approved manually (for example, if you want to contact the customer before sending a reminder).
Reminders are essential for handling overdue payments, including suspension and possible termination of the subscription if the invoice is not paid.
The view in this tab works in the same way as approval of invoicing under the “Invoice subscriptions manually” tab. The difference is that when you click the “Approve overdue handling for selected invoices” button, the next step in the overdue process is carried out, such as sending a reminder, suspending or terminating the subscription, or marking the invoice as “defaulted.”
Invoice delivery
Under the “Invoice delivery” tab, you will find invoices that could not be sent automatically. This may include customers set to manual invoicing, customers with insufficient information for automatic invoicing, or cases where automatic invoicing methods have failed for some reason. These invoices must therefore be sent manually, meaning the publisher is responsible for ensuring that the customer receives them.
Once you have selected the business entity (if you have more than one) and clicked the “Show” button, you will see a view displaying the number of invoices awaiting manual delivery or reminder.
When you click the number awaiting, you are taken to the view under Financials > Invoices, where you can see which invoices and reminders need to be sent manually. Here, you should investigate why the invoices were not sent automatically and, if necessary, update the customer data or terminate the subscription.
From both the “Invoice delivery” page and the Finance > Invoices page, you can choose to export invoices as:
Individual XML files
Combined PDF
Individual PDFs
Afterwards, you can mark them all as sent.
If an invoice has not been sent to the subscriber, the automatic handling of reminders and any suspension or termination will not be initiated.