The invoice is a document issued to the guest outlining all the transactions associated with a reservation, including room rates, payments, adjustments, and additional products sold. Generating an invoice is useful to show the guest how much they owe along with a breakdown of all the charges.
Step 1. Navigate to Invoicing:
1) Click on the gear icon in the top right corner
2) Select 'Invoicing' tab
Step 2. On the 'Invoicing' page you may set the way invoices for guests are generated and displayed.
You will find the following fields on the setup screen:
1) Would you like the invoice to be generated based on the country the guest is from?
2) If you selected No on the previous question, or if the language for the country of the guest is not available, select the language in which the invoice will display.
*If you want the invoices to be generated in one specific language, select 'No' in previous option and choose the language you would like the invoice to be generated in.
Currently, the following languages are supported:
3) Title
This is the name of the invoice that will appear when you download a PDF or send an email with the invoice, in case you want to name it something other than "Invoice"
4) Prefix
Select any numbers or letters that you would like to appear before the sequentially generated invoice number. Example: INV-1001
5) Starting Index Number
The number of the first invoice that gets generated. All invoices generated after will be sequential, continuing from this number. If you enter "1" here, your first invoice number will be 1, followed by 2, and so on. if you enter "1001", your first invoice number will be 1001, followed by 1002, etc.
6) Suffix
Select any numbers or letters that you would like to after the sequentially generated invoice number. Example: 1001-POST
7) Tax ID Number
If you would like the tax number to appear on the invoice, add it below. You can add up to two tax IDs.
8) Logo
This image uploader allows you to add your property logo to display on the invoices. The recommended size is 100-pixel height and 100-pixel width.
9) Would you like the invoices to be generated immediately when a new reservation is created, or generate them manually whenever you need it? (more information in sections below)
If this option is selected, each time a new reservation is created within the application (this includes both manually created reservations from within the application, as well as all the incoming reservations from the channels you are integrated with), the invoice will be generated immediately. This means that you do not need to generate an invoice each time. The default due date will start counting from the day the reservation is created.
If this option is selected, an invoice will not be created until you navigate to the reservation and generate an invoice. With this option, you will be able to pick and choose which reservations have an invoice, and keep the index number consistent based on when you generate the invoice. The due date will start counting from the day the invoice is generated, not the day the reservation is created.
Learn how to create an invoice from reservation in section below.
10) Default Due Date
This refers to the number of days the guest has to pay the invoice from the time the invoice is generated. If the invoice is generated immediately, this will be the number of days to make a payment after the reservation has been created. If you have selected to generate the invoice manually, this will be the number of days after you generate the invoice. If you do not want to display a due date on the invoice, leave this area blank.
11) Show the room number column on the invoice
12) Show tax specifics on the invoice
If enabled and the property has multiple taxes, a breakdown of the total of each tax type will appear on the invoice.
13) Use Compact Invoices
Leaving this box unchecked will generate the invoices much like a folio. Every transaction (including nightly room prices and taxes) will appear as its own line item. Checking this box will consolidate common transactions into their own line
14) Show legal company name on the invoice
The legal name will appear beneath the property name, above the address when the users issue the invoice.
15) Custom Text
If you have any additional text to add to the invoice, such as directions for how to make a payment and/or any additional policies, you can add them below.
After you have populated all the information you would like to have on the invoice, save the page and click "PDF Preview" in the top right corner to download a preview PDF of what it would look like next time you generate an invoice.
In order to generate the invoice you need to:
1) Go to the reservation
2) Click the 'Actions' button and select 'Generate New Invoice'
3) Select the folio(s) for which you want to generate an invoice
Learn more about how to create several invoices based on different folios here: Can I create an Invoice for each guest?
4) You may see the list of all the invoices created on the reservation page by clicking the 'Documents' tab
5) Select 'Invoices' on the left side of the screen:
Please refer to this article to learn more about this topic: Can I create an Invoice for each guest?
1. You can generate and open an invoice from within a reservation where it was generated.
Go to Reservation Details > Documents > Invoices tab
2. You can also search for the invoice(s) on the Invoices Report page. It's possible to open (and then download) the invoices from this report
To download an invoice - click on it, it will open the invoice in a new tab. You can download the invoice on that tab:
You can also print the invoice by clicking on the printer icon
Depending on your cancellation policies for a particular channel, a guest may incur a cancellation fee (e.g. for canceling within 72h of check-in).
The cancellation fee will be displayed on Invoice PDFs. This fee is not used for calculation purposes anywhere on myfrontdesk, this is only for informational purposes.
Note that if a reservation is canceled and the fee comes in as a zero value, that we will show that on the reservation. This just means that the reservation was canceled, but per your policy on that channel, no Cancellation Fee was issued to the now-canceled guest.
This feature is only available for OTA reservations and only for OTAs that send us this information.
Troubleshooting
Problem: You clicked on an invoice, and the file was downloaded in a browser as blank.
Possible solutions:
1) It is recommended to add Cloudbeds to the list of secured websites in McAfee extension (if you use one) or other security extensions if you use any
2) disable McAfee extension in Chrome (if it used)
3) enable the feature "download PDF file instead of automatically opening them" in Chrome
- On your computer, open Chrome.
- At the top right, click More Settings.
- At the bottom, click Advanced.
- Under "Privacy and security," click Site settings.
- Near the bottom, click PDF documents.
- Turn on Download PDF files instead of automatically opening them in Chrome.