Bootcamp 3 - Manage Your Finances

Today’s bootcamp is all about the money. For many of us dealing with finances is our least favourite part of being in business. That’s why we have made it super simple for you to create, send and manage invoices, and track payments. So you can stay on top of your finances without needing to spend a lot of time on it.

Overview:

1. Customise your settings
2. Create and send invoices
3. Log payments
4. Progress Payment

5. Integrate with Xero
   

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1. Customise your settings

Before you can create and send your first invoice you need to customise a few settings.

• Go to the settings area of Roll by clicking on the setting symbol in the top right corner
• On the general settings page you can change your currency symbol and add hourly rates (as well as a bunch of other things not related to invoicing)
• Select ‘Invoices’ from the list on the left side
• This is where you can edit all your invoice details including tax settings, adding your company logo and contact details and your footer text.
• Once you’re done make sure you click ‘save’ at the bottom of the page.

2. Create and send invoices

Now that you have customised your invoice settings you’re ready to create and send your first invoice. There are two ways to do this in Roll.

Create Invoices from the ‘Time’ view
In our previous bootcamp you learnt how quick and easy it is to track your time with Roll. So it’s probably no surprise that it’s also super simple to invoice those tracked hours.

• Open the project you want to create an invoice for and go to the Time tab via the top menu. Here you can see all the time that has been logged for this project
• If you only want to invoice some of the time tracked (instead of all unbilled time) simple select those via the tick box next to the date,
• Click on the ‘Create Invoice’ button next to ‘Log new time’.
• Choose if you want to invoice all unbilled time or only selected time
• Your invoice is created and opens up automatically. All fields are populated based on your settings but you can also manually edit almost all fields in your invoice.
• Review and, if needed, edit your invoice
• When you’re happy with your invoice click on the ‘Approve & send’ button at the bottom to email your invoice directly to your client.

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Pro Tip

You can also download your invoice as PDF and simple mark it as sent without actually sending it. Simply click on the ‘Actions’ button next to ‘Approve & send’ for more options.

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Pro Tip

You can (pre)view your invoice by clicking on the sharable link at the bottom right. You could also share this link with your client. Just remember to mark the invoice as sent, otherwise it will show as a draft.

Create invoices from the ‘Invoices’ view
Let’s say you have agreed on a fixed price with a client instead of an hourly rate. So when it’s time to invoice them you don’t want to invoice tracked time but just send an invoice for a certain amount. Here’s how you go about it.

• Open the project you want to create an invoice for and go to the Invoice tab via the top menu. Here you can see all the invoices that have already been created for this project as well as their status.
• Click on the ‘Create Invoice’ button to create a new invoice
• This opens up your invoice and you can add and edit all the details just like you would when you create an invoice from the tracked time view.
• Edit and review your invoice
• When you’re happy with your invoice you’ve got a couple of options

•  Click on the ‘Approve & send’ button at the bottom to email your invoice directly to your client. 
  

•  Download your invoice as PDF by clicking on the ‘Actions’ button next to ‘Approve & send’
  

•  Or simply mark the invoice as sent without actually sending it by clicking on the ‘Actions’ button next to ‘Approve & send’. You can then use the shareable link on the left side to share the invoice with your client. 
  

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Pro Tip

You can (pre)view your invoice by clicking on the sharable link at the bottom right.

Watch the video to learn more about invoicing and see how it all works.

3. Log payments

Alright, now that you have sent your invoices you will hopefully see the money coming in soon. And of course you want to keep track of who has paid what and which invoices are still outstanding. Here is how you can log a payment against an invoice.

• Open the invoice. You can do so either by going directly to invoices from the top left menu (click on the dollar symbol) or by opening the relevant project and navigating to the invoice tab.
• Scroll to the bottom and click on the ‘Actions’ button
• Select ‘Log payment’
• Fill in the details in the form that pops up and click ‘Add payment’.

That’s it. Quick and simple.

4. Progress Payments

This is one of the awesome new features in Roll. You can now schedule payments up to 6 months into the future. This is especially value for larger projects that carry on over several month and are invoiced in several steps.

• Open your project and go to the 'Progress Payments' tab (top menu in the project view)
• Add in your payments

5. Integrate with Xero

While you can do everything, from managing opportunities through to invoicing, in Roll we do understand some businesses need more complex accounting systems. That is why you can connect Roll to your Xero account (and other accounting systems in the future).

Integrating Roll and Xero makes invoicing super simple. In fact, you won’t even need to log into Xero anymore. Everything happens directly in Roll. When you send an invoice to your client via Roll, Xero is automatically updated. And when a payment is logged in your Xero account this is automatically synced back to Roll. Needless to say, we’re super proud of our Xero integration (we think it’s one of the best out there).

Watch the video below see how it works and how to set it up for your business.