What is Rules Based Invoicing? How does it work?

Rules-based invoicing is a special invoicing feature on Cheqdin that allows you to generate multiple invoices with varying amounts in a single click. Now, isn’t that plain old bulk-invoicing, you might ask? Well, it is bulk-invoicing of sorts, but a much smarter and simplified version and specifically designed for childcare providers.

Now, why do you want it?

Unlike in most other sectors, the seemingly simple bulk-invoicing/batch-invoicing feature isn’t quite so straightforward for the early years and after school care sector.

You could be using a cracking invoicing software and still find yourself doing quite a bit of work instructing the system to retrieve all the information for each of the invoices.

This is because most of the invoicing systems that are currently available in the market follow a one-shoe-fit-all batch-invoicing pattern that does not quite give you the option to factor in variable booking patterns, session timings and fee structures. Even if they do, you will find the entire workflow so complicated and time-consuming that it ends up nearly as difficult as doing it all manually.

Cheqdin’s Rules-based invoicing solves this issue for you.

Our rules-based invoicing allows you to simplify the entire batch-invoicing process by setting your own rules and creating invoices in batches based on the requirements you define in your system.

You can create weekly, monthly, termly or ad-hoc invoices and add in discounts, additional/extra fees or taxes – without doing individual calculations for each invoice.

For example, if you are looking at creating invoices for ‘all children who took ad-hoc sessions in a month’, all you need to do is create a rule for ‘monthly invoices with ad-hoc sessions’ in your Cheqdin invoicing dashboard and the system will automatically generate the invoices for that group.

Ok, now how does it all work?

Step 1: Create Invoice Rule

Go to ‘Billing’> Rules-Based Invoicing > ‘Invoice Rules’> ‘Add Invoice Rule’

Start by giving the rule that you are defining an easily identifiable name, for example, ‘Monthly invoice with Ad-hoc Sessions’.  Update all fields. Click on ‘Add Rule’.

Step 2: Select Children

You can now select all the children that you’d like to apply the rule to. Search for the children individually by name or filter out children based on rooms. Go for the ‘Select All’ option. Apply the rule to all children shown on the screen and deselect children by unchecking the box next to their name.

Step 3: Confirm Invoice Rule

You can now preview the rule that you have defined and recheck all the details you have entered.  Click on ‘generate invoices’ and head straight to your ‘draft’ folder to find the entire set of invoices waiting for you. Select the ‘tick box’ if you want to save the rule as a template and simply re-run it again when you need it the next time.