Prepare invoices from budgets, time, expenses or subscriptions

Objective. Prepare consistent draft invoices from the appropriate sources, review their content and tax treatment, and validate them only after the client, matter and amounts have been checked.

Estimated duration1 h 25

What you will learn

Choose the correct preparation method for budgets, time, expenses, quantities or subscriptions.
Understand the difference between source data, a draft invoice and an issued invoice.
Review invoice lines, VAT, due dates, presentation and supporting details before issue.

Recommended workflow

Confirm the issuing company, invoice date, client and matter before selecting source data.
Select only the budget lines, time entries, expenses or recurring items covered by the billing period.
Open the draft in the invoices-to-validate list and review every line and total.
Validate the invoice, check the final document and reconcile the source data marked as invoiced.

Before continuing

The selected period and source data do not overlap a previous invoice.
Sales codes, descriptions, VAT rates, payment terms and recipient details are correct.
The draft remains editable until validation; the issued invoice follows the corrective-document workflow.

Before you begin

Choose a client and matter in your subscription with a billing budget, billable time and, when the contract allows it, a re-billable expense. Prepare a readable draft without issuing it. For example, an €850 monthly budget lets you check that a fixed fee is included only once.

Prerequisites

Locate the budget, at least one time and one expense record and note billable/already-invoiced states.
Check the selected sales code, its one-character VAT code, invoice template, client, matter and intended invoice date.
Remain in preparation or invoices awaiting validation; do not validate, send or transmit training documents.
Before preparation, write down company, client, matter, period, invoice date, included and excluded sources and expected total. Compare that result with the draft carrying the same identifier and filters.

Suggested schedule — 1 h 25

5 min: record the company, period, client and expected total.
10 min: select perimeter and sources.
15 min: compare budget and actual proposals.
10 min: check budget consumption.
10 min: check time, expenses and duplicates.
10 min: review sales code, VAT, template, client and matter.
10 min: anticipate journal, payment and export.
10 min: complete preparation without issue.
5 min: step back on the billing method.

Before clicking, write down the invoice you expect, its period, client, included and excluded sources, and total.

1. Choose a billing method from the commercial rule

A fixed fee, actual time, re-billable expenses, quantities, subscription and progress billing answer different contracts. Do not choose the method that produces the desired total fastest. Read the engagement and identify what the client purchases, when it becomes billable and what detail must appear.

For your selected matter, treat its budget as the fixed-fee source and actual records as control information unless the contract explicitly adds them. If an expense is separately re-billable, identify it. Write included and excluded sources; this prevents the same work appearing once through budget and again through time.

Tempolia screenshot: invoice preparation form — Preparation brings sources, perimeter and invoice options together.

2. Fix the perimeter before selecting rows

Set your company, period, client, matter and intended invoice date. Confirm the accounting and service periods separately when needed. A broad preparation run can create many drafts; this workshop uses one client so every result can be predicted.

List all candidate budget, time and expense rows and their states. Exclude another period, matter, non-billable work and already-invoiced records. If the screen is empty, inspect filters, approval and eligibility; do not widen the period until unrelated rows appear.

3. Check how the source records become invoice lines

Open Invoices awaiting validation. The draft should contain the expected commercial lines and total. For each line, record its source, quantity, unit, unit price, description, sales code and VAT. Confirm that the selected budget amount appears once and that any added expense is supported by the contract and receipt.

A draft can be corrected or regenerated before issue. This is the moment to fix its source and prepare it again. Compare source totals with draft totals and explain every grouping or rounding. Do not validate a line merely because the overall total looks right: two opposite errors can cancel each other.

Tempolia screenshot: invoices awaiting validation — Invoices awaiting validation are the final editable control point.

4. Check budget, time and expense sources

Open billing budgets and matter budget, then filter time and expense detail with the exact same perimeter. Check approval, billable status, already-invoiced indicator and dates. These views explain why a record is eligible; they should not be edited simply to force the draft.

When actual time exceeds budget, decide whether this affects commercial billing or only profitability. When an expense is missing, check its re-billing rule and receipt. For each source, note whether it is included, excluded or already invoiced, and why.

Tempolia screenshot: monthly billing budgets — Billing budgets provide planned commercial amounts by period.

Tempolia screenshot: time detail for invoicing — Time detail verifies eligible work and previous invoicing status.

Expense detail used to check the source of the draft — In expense detail, check the amount, receipt, re-billing status and any previous invoicing.

5. Validate reference data, client and presentation

The selected sales code determines wording and accounting behaviour; its one-character VAT code determines tax; the template determines presentation. The client record supplies billing identity, contact, terms and electronic-routing data. The matter supplies operational context. Review sources rather than overwriting generated text without understanding the cause.

Preview the PDF. Check seller and buyer, number and date placeholders, line wording, net, VAT, gross, due date, bank details and legal text. A well-presented PDF can still contain an incorrect source or amount, while correct structured data can still produce a client document that is difficult to read.

Tempolia screenshot: sales-code reference — Sales codes control wording, accounting and tax linkage.

VAT-code reference data used to check tax treatment — VAT-code reference data is where the tax treatment used by the draft is checked.

Invoice templates used to control document presentation — Invoice templates control presentation; they do not replace checks on amounts or tax.

Client billing tab with recipient and payment information — The client billing tab supplies the recipient, payment terms and presentation preferences.

Matter list used to confirm the selected client, matter and status — Use the matter list to check identity and status, then verify the draft-to-matter link inside the draft.

6. Anticipate validation and downstream effects

Validation changes an editable proposal into an issued document. After issue, corrections use credit-note or corrective-document workflows. Before validation, review the expected journal entry, customer balance, source rows marked invoiced, accounting export and possible PA/eReporting status.

Stop before validation and review the expected effects in the sales journal, customer account, source lines and export. This check can reveal a missing identifier or incorrect term without creating a fiscal document. Transmission history may legitimately be empty before sending; after sending, use it to check the actual status.

Sales journal checked after invoice validation — The sales journal is the downstream screen where the document should appear only after validation.

Hands-on preparation control

1. Write the expected scope and total for your selected client, then run the preparation only if authorised.
One draft and no unrelated client or period.
If not, review company, dates, matter and source switches.
2. Match every draft line to its budget, time or expense record.
Each line has one source and no source is billed twice.
If not, inspect billable, approved and already-invoiced states.
3. Review the selected sales code, its one-character VAT code, client, matter and PDF.
Identity, calculation, wording and presentation agree.
If not, correct the responsible source and regenerate.
4. Predict journal, balance, export and electronic routing without validation.
The expected effects in the journal, customer balance, source lines, export and transmission flow have been reviewed before validation.
If not, stop the draft and complete prerequisites.

The draft can be reopened later and each line can still be traced to the selected budget, time, expense or manual entry.

Errors to avoid

Choosing a method from the desired total instead of the contract.
Combining fixed fee and actual time twice.
Widening filters to solve an empty result.
Validating from total alone.
Correcting generated wording while leaving the source wrong.
Treating an empty transmission history as successful transmission.

Step back

Before issue, return once more to the matter's billing rule: fixed fee, time, expenses or a contractually defined combination.

Make sure each source appears only once, then review the client, amounts, VAT, due date and PDF. If a line is wrong, correct its source and regenerate the draft so the same error does not return at the next preparation.

Compare another draft without issuing it

Choose a second matter and prepare one draft from the budget and one from actual time and expenses. Stop before validation or issue.

1. Before opening Tempolia, write down source method, selected rows, net amount, VAT, gross amount and the status of every source row.
2. Prepare each route separately, note its total, then cancel or discard the test draft before trying the other route. Return to the source row for every unexplained amount.
3. Test one billing anomaly: missing source, budget and actual selected together, wrong VAT or a row already used. Explain the cause before changing any value.
4. Close every tab and repeat the route, checking that every line still points to the same source and billing treatment.

Each draft line remains linked to one source, and no source is consumed twice.