Please note: The following feature is available as part of Birdie’s Starter, Core, Advanced and Plus packages (as well as Care Management, Rostering & Finance, Premium, Entry and Essentials) Please get in touch if interested in more information on this feature!
Invoice cycles are set periods for generating recurring invoices. They establish regular billing schedules which reduces the amount of work required when invoicing and minimises the risk of errors. They also help ensure timely billing when dealing with complex funding, such as needing to bill different payers on different periods or needing to support Clients with multiple payers.
Invoice cycle steps
Create an invoice cycle
Link the cycle to a contract(s)
Generate invoices using the cycle dashboard
How to create an invoice cycle
Start by going to the Invoice cycles tab. To add a new invoice cycle click the + Add cycle button.
From here, you can add the mandatory details for the invoice cycle such as:
The cycle name
Recurrence (monthly, 4-weekly, weekly)
Start date (You will be able to backdate the start date of the cycle)
Monthly cycles will repeat on the same day every month, if you pick 1st January, your next billing period will start on 1st February, then on 1st March, etc. For example, this is the billing period of some private payers.
4-Weekly cycles will repeat every 28 days, so if you pick 1st January, your next billing period will start on 29th January, then on 26th February, etc. For example, this is the billing period for some council payers.
Weekly cycles will repeat every 7 days, so if you pick 1st January, your next billing period will start on 8th January, then on 15th January, etc. For example, this is the billing period of some live-in care payers.
Once you have added the details click Add cycle. You will now see the cycle on this page.
How to add an invoice cycle to a new contract
You can see which cycles have been used in the status column, when they are linked to a contract they will be Active and when they are not yet linked to a contract they will be marked as Unused.
You can add the invoice cycle when adding a new contract. For a more in-depth step-by-step guide on how to create a contract for a payer, see this article - How to Add & Edit Contract Information.
How to add an invoice cycle to an existing contract
To add an invoice cycle to a contract, start by going to the Payer contracts tab and select the payer. Here you will be able to see the payer's details and the list of contracts associated with them.
You will be able to see if they have an invoice cycle attached to the contract under the invoice cycle section (circled in the image below). If this has not been added yet it will show as N/A.
To add an invoice cycle click the edit button on the contract. From here you can add the cycle, you can only add one cycle per contract. Click Save when you are done.
You will now see that the contract has been updated with the invoice cycle.
How to generate invoices using invoice cycles
Once you have set your invoice cycles up you are ready to generate invoices.
Click on the Invoice dashboard tab you will have the option to view and filter this page using Cycles or Period.
To view an invoice cycle click the Select Cycle button and choose the invoice cycle on the drop-down list.
You can filter this further by selecting:
a Contract(s)
A Client
You will now see all the visit data associated with that invoice cycle ready for you to generate an invoice.
If you see any visits at this stage which are not right, you have the option to restore these to the Confirm visits tab to reconcile again. You can do this by clicking the Restore visits button in the filter section or by doing this individually by clicking the three dots at the end of the row.
Once you are ready to generate your invoices, click the Generate invoice button, here you can select whether this is done by Contract or Client.
For more information on generating and exporting invoices, see this article - How to export and send invoices in Birdie.
How to archive an invoice cycle
Once your cycle has been linked to a contract, it becomes Active and can no longer be deleted. This is to minimize errors and maintain an audit trail.
However, you can archive an active cycle, this ensures they no longer appear in the cycles lists when you link a cycle to a contract or when you generate invoices.
To do this, click the three dots on the invoice cycle and select Archive cycle on the drop-down menu.
You will see a pop-up warning you of your actions and that this cycle will be removed from the active list but will be preserved. This allows you to restore it in the future if needed without having to create it again.
Click the Archive button to confirm.
To view your archived invoice cycle, click the show archived button.
To restore an archived invoice cycle, click the three dots and select Restore cycle. This will make it Active again. Any contracts linked to this cycle will continue to be assigned to this cycle.
Please note: Archiving a cycle does not remove it from a contract. If you wish to move the contract to an Active cycle, please reassign it.