Introduction to Invoicing

The HWIT Application gives you a simple way to manage your invoicing, tracking every charge you need to account for and creating a single invoice at the end of the month to contain all of the items you need to bill.

The terms to consider to understand the billing flow are:

1. Item Codes: these are the services or items you plan to charge for.  In QuickBooks they are called Product / Service Codes and in Zoho they are called Items.  It is recommended that you set up your Item Codes in your accounting system and then let them sync to HWIT.   Examples of Item Codes would be:  Home Visit, Concierge Hours, Battery Charges, Air Filter charges, etc.
2. Billing Entries: are entries that get made for items that should show up on the customer’s invoice.  Every home visit could generate a Billing Entry for that visit.  Additional charges like concierge hours can also be billing entries.   Anything that should be accumulated and appear on the customer’s invoice at the end of the month is a Billing Entry.
3. Invoice Generation: is the process of taking all of your billing entries, summarizing them onto the customer’s invoice, and then syncing that invoice to your accounting software.
4. Visit Rate and Concierge Rate: are the rates you charge a particular customer for your services.  Every customer can have a different visit rate and concierge rate.

When properly set up, every time you complete a report it will automatically add a Billing Entry for that event — whether a home visit or a concierge item.  You can update the concierge entry after it is made to put in the proper number of hours.  You can also enter any other charges individually through either the desktop or the mobile application.

The steps to prepare your system include:

1. Adding rates and items to each customer, or
2. Adding rates to each customer and an item to each schedule, or
3. Adding an item and rate to each individual report.

📄 Billing Entry Logic (from bottom up)

When creating a billing entry from a report, the system checks for an applicable item code in the following order:

2. ✅ Report Item Code

   • If an item code is present on the report, it takes top priority.

   • Example: Use this for concierge items – select an Item Code like “Concierge” and set the rate manually.

3. 🔁 Schedule Item Code

   • If no item code exists on the report, the system checks the schedule for one.

4. 👤 Customer Default Item Code

   • If neither the report nor schedule provides an item code, the system falls back to the customer’s default.

5. 🚫 No Entry Created

   • If no item code is found in any of the above, no billing entry is created.

Just for clarity on rates:

When you assign a billing item to a report, schedule or property, the rate you set — even if it’s $0 — is what gets used when the visit is completed. A $0 rate means the visit is tracked but won’t generate a charge. If no billing item is assigned, the system automatically looks for one at the next level (schedule, then property, then the item’s default rate) until it finds one. So if you’re seeing an unexpected rate, check whether a billing item is assigned at the schedule or report level, since that will always take priority.

When a billing item ID is set, the associated rate is used exactly as stored — including zero. A zero rate on a valid billing item is intentional and means the visit will be recorded as billable but at no charge. If no billing item ID is set, the rate is ignored entirely and the system moves to the next tier in the hierarchy (schedule → property → item template default). In short: the billing item ID controls whether a tier is used; the rate only matters once a valid item ID is found.