Create Ad Hoc Invoices

Ad hoc invoices allow you to bill customers for one-time charges, services, or custom line items outside of Subscription billing. This flexible tool supports miscellaneous billing needs and lets you create Invoices using catalog items or custom amounts.

Start an Invoice

To create an Ad Hoc Invoice, open the subscription you want to bill, then navigate to the Invoices tab.
If your role has permission to create invoices, click Create New Invoice.

An invoice will be created in “Draft” status with pre-populated Subscriber information. You may edit most aspects of the draft invoice and add line items with a title, quantity, unit price and service period dates. Listed below is an overview of several options on the Ad Hoc Invoice.

Edit Invoice Details

You can update key invoice fields while the invoice is still in Draft.

Click the Pencil icon () to edit:

• Contact information
• Billing or Shipping addresses
• Memo
• Payment Instructions

Set Invoice Dates

Invoice dates control when the invoice is issued and when payment is due.

1. Right below the invoice number, click Edit Dates to change the Issue and/or Due dates.
2. Select the Net Terms, which is the number of days after an invoice is issued that the invoice is due.

Issue Date Rules

• The Issue Date must be today (Now) or a past date.
• Advanced Billing does not allow future issue dates because issuing an invoice immediately makes it available for payment.

Due Date Rule

• The Due Date is calculated based on the Net Terms you select. In some configurations, you may also be able to override the calculated due date and choose a different future date.

Close Date Restrictions

This feature needs to be enabled for your site. If you do not see the described behavior or options in your account, contact the Support team to enable the feature flag.

Your site may enforce a Close Date to prevent invoicing in closed accounting periods. 

If a Close Date is set:

• You cannot create an Ad Hoc invoice dated on or before the Close Date.
• Dates on or before the Close Date are unavailable in the date picker.

Example:

If a Close Date is set, invoice dates before or on that date are locked. This ensures invoices can only be created in open accounting periods.

Best Practices

• After closing an accounting period, update the Close Date so users cannot accidentally issue invoices in a closed period.
• Before issuing an invoice, confirm the invoice date is selectable and not restricted by the Close Date.
• If multiple teams create invoices, coordinate Close Date updates with accounting or finance administrators.

Date Selection Messages

If your site has a Close Date enabled, Advanced Billing may display informational messages explaining why certain invoice dates are unavailable.

These messages explain:

• What the Close Date means;
• Why certain invoice dates cannot be selected.

Add Line Items

Line items represent the charges included on the invoice.

To add a line item

1. Enter a title, quantity, and unit price.
   Unit price precision and rounding depend on your site’s currency and billing configuration.
2. Optionally, select a product or component from the Catalog.

3. Review the calculated total.

   Advanced Billing calculates line totals automatically. In most cases, the total is based on quantity multiplied by unit price, plus any applicable discounts or taxes.

   Units x Unit Price = Total

   Where:

   • You provide the quantity, or Units.
   • Either you provide the Unit Price, or Advanced Billing calculates the Unit Price based on the price point of a given product or component from your Catalog.
   • You can also enter an optional Date Range to represent the service period. If a date range is not specified, the default is a start and end date of today (Now).

4. If taxes are enabled on your site, you may be prompted to select a Tax Type for taxable line items

   Line item totals are recalculated automatically as you update pricing, quantity, or tax settings.

5. To save the Line Item, click Add Line Item.
6. Repeat this process to add multiple line items.
7. To edit or delete a Line Item, click the More icon (...) next to the added Line Item.

Apply Coupons

You can add discounts using coupons:

• Select an existing coupons from the Catalog.
• Or, enter an Ad Hoc coupon manually.

Choose Payment Options

• You have the option to set the payment collection as remittance or immediate process.
• For the immediate process payment method, should the processing of the payment method fail, you can choose to roll back the creation of the ad hoc invoice or issue the ad hoc invoice as "Open". If you issue the invoice as Open, collection behavior depends on your payment settings. Automatic subscriptions may attempt collection later, but you can also collect payment manually.

Taxes on Ad Hoc Invoices

If taxes are enabled and supported by your site’s configuration, Advanced Billing automatically selects a Tax Type. You can, however, edit the Tax Type for the line item. Some tax setups (such as Avalara) allow you to choose Other and enter a Tax Code.

If your site is configured to calculate taxes automatically, tax amounts are calculated when you add the line item. Additionally, changing the shipping or billing address after marking a line item as taxable results in recalculating the tax amounts.

Keep in mind that tax calculation depends on shipping or billing addresses and tax settings. Tax calculation may require a complete billing or shipping address, depending on your tax provider and configuration. Without an address, Advanced Billing may not be able to determine the correct tax jurisdiction. Make sure the customer’s address includes all required fields (such as country, state, and postal code) so the correct tax region can be determined (see Country and State formats). Also consider if the Customer is tax exempt. In this case, the tax cannot be added to the Ad Hoc Invoice until you update the Customer record.

In some cases, Advanced Billing may display a notice if the customer is tax exempt or located in a non-taxable region (respectively):

How taxes are calculated depends on how the site is configured to collect taxes:

• If Custom Taxes are enabled for the site, please confirm that the invoice’s shipping/billing address overlap with the geographic regions defined in your tax rules and check EU VAT distinctions.
• If Advanced Billing Managed Sales Tax is enabled on the site, please confirm that the invoice’s shipping/billing address overlap with the taxable regions you defined and check your Avalara VAT Tax configuration.
• If Link My Avalara Account is enabled on the site, Advanced Billing will use your account to ask Avalara for tax amounts.

Issuing the Ad Hoc Invoice

Issuing the invoice moves it from Draft to Open. Once open, the invoice can be paid using the payment methods enabled on your site. Until you click Issue Invoice, it remains in "Draft" status. Unissued (draft) ad hoc invoices can still be found on the Invoice list. So, you may navigate away and come back to it later to finish your work.

When you issue the invoice, the following happens:

• The invoice status is set to “Open” and it becomes available for payment.
• You may then collect payment on the invoice from within Advanced Billing.
• If online payments are enabled, customers may be able to pay by credit card or ACH through the shared invoice link, if you share the online invoice with them.
• Whether an invoice email is sent depends on your site’s invoice delivery settings. Some sites send invoice notifications automatically, while others require you to send the invoice manually.

Using Updated Customer Information

What happens if the Customer information, or custom fields on the Customer record or Subscription, changes? In the case of Ad Hoc Invoices, if Customer or Subscription details change after the invoice is created, Advanced Billing may display an option to refresh the invoice with the most recent customer information, depending on invoice status and configuration.

For step-by-step instructions, see Update Invoice Customer Information.