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I sell pre-paid packages of hours. The more hours the person purchases, the cheaper the effective hourly rate. I therefore don’t want to track their hours at an actual rate (which may change depending on any refunds) and instead, I override the default billing rates and set myself for $1.00/hr and add $1.00 for every hour they purchase. 


Is there a way to remove the “$” from showing up on the invoices? If I can remove the “$” from the invoice sent to the clients, I can keep using this setup without it being too confusing for the clients as they won’t have to remember that $1 = 1 hour… 

 

I know that’s a strange request. Any thoughts, insights, or work arounds are appreciated! 

Hi Carsen,

That’s a really interesting application of SB Billing! Love it!

There isn’t a way to remove the $ sign, but I wonder would it help to remove the line item and subtotals completely?

In your Invoice template setup (or you can test this on your Draft invoice page by using the Edit Invoice Options and then use Preview to see the result), you can try unticking the “Show Fee Total” and the “Show Fee Total Summary” options.

This will remove them from the invoice line item table, and the it will just be the totals at the bottom of the invoice.

I know this isn’t exactly what you were asking, but would this help minimise confusion? Or you’d really prefer to be able to remove the dollar signs from the invoice totals section too?

cheers

Sam

 

Hi Carsen,

One more thought:

Are you showing the number of hours to your client?

If so, would a combination of removing the Fee Totals as I mentioned above, but tick “Show Hours” and “Show Hours Summary” help?

You’d end up with something like this:

Would that work?

cheers

Sam

 

@CarsenTazi have you considered the idea of receiving your client’s payments via operating retainer and then invoicing them for work performed with a final invoice to use up the advanced payment retainer?

Our firm uses advanced payment retainers or minimum fee retainers in limited circumstances and we are using the above method to make sure that the retainer does not count towards partner income in reports until it is fully earned i.e. non-refundable under our state ethics regs.

I think this method would avoid the need to redenominate or reclassify the unit being billed while accurately tracking the money paid and used. It will also let you push this into your accounting software accurately which your method should not.

I think I understand but I will need to play with it a bit. You are right about maintaining an awareness for the firm reporting (not just the client’s tracking). 

 

thanks! 

I know this isn’t exactly what you were asking, but would this help minimise confusion? Or you’d really prefer to be able to remove the dollar signs from the invoice totals section too?

 

 

With how I’m currently doing it, literally removing the “$” would make it aligned with how I’m tracking and reporting it. 
 

Another user’s comment brought up an issue that is making me realized how my current system is going to mess up my financial reporting. 
 

Any suggestions continue to be appreciated. (The intention is to be able to track & report the time to the clients so that everyone knows how much time remains). 
 

@JKibler great, input. Thank you! 

@CarsenTazi  I am wondering if you’d be okay with making a new post to tackle the financial reporting side of things? I’ll stick the new post up for you in a few prominent spots to catch a few more ideas :) 

@Ben - on it (good idea)

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