Advances and Billing

Once a job is open, you can take payment on account, bill the customer once the work is done, or cancel the job if it does not go ahead.

Taking an Advance

An advance is money the customer pays before the job is finished, for example an advance deposit to cover parts.

1. Open the job and choose Take Advance.
2. Choose Cash or Card and enter the amount.
3. Click Collect Advance. This prints an advance receipt.

You can take as many advances as you like over the life of the job. Each one is its own receipt, and all of them are applied when you bill the job.

INFO

An advance is not counted as a sale straight away. It is money held on account (store credit) until the job is billed. The cash still goes into the cash drawer and the shift right away, but the sale itself is only recorded once, when you bill at pickup. This avoids counting the same money twice.

In the customer's store credit history, an advance shows up as an Advance entry, and a refunded advance (see Cancelling a Job below) shows as Advance Refund, so it is easy to tell apart from an ordinary sale refund. See Store Credit for the full history view.

Advance Deposits Are Reserved for Their Own Job

When a customer pays an advance, that money sits on their account as store credit. By default, this advance deposit is reserved: it can only be used to pay for the job it was taken against. It cannot be spent at checkout on a different purchase, or on a different job, until that job is billed or cancelled.

This protects your shop. Without this setting, an advance deposit could be spent on unrelated goods before the job is finished, leaving the job unpaid when the customer comes to collect it.

If a cashier tries to use a customer's store credit at checkout and part of it is reserved for an open job, the POS will only offer the amount that is actually free to spend, and will explain that the rest is held against a service job. There are no surprises at the register.

This setting is on by default. A shop owner can turn it off in Settings under Service Jobs if they would rather let advance deposits be spent freely, the same way ordinary store credit works.

Collecting and Billing (Convert to Sale)

When the item is ready:

1. Open the job and choose Convert to Sale.
2. The full total is shown. Any advances the customer already paid are applied automatically, so they pay only the balance.
3. Confirm whether it is a store pickup or a delivery by courier.
4. Take the balance payment. The invoice prints automatically, on the thermal printer, on A4, or on a custom paper size, depending on what your store has chosen in Settings.

When the advance deposit is more than the final total

Sometimes a job comes in cheaper than expected, and the advance deposit already covers more than the whole bill. A 1,000 deposit on a job that finishes at 600 leaves 400 spare.

When that happens, the Convert to Sale screen shows the surplus and asks what to do with it. Only the 600 is used to pay the bill, never the full 1,000.

You have to choose one before you can convert the service job, so the surplus never moves unless you say so:

• Keep as store credit: the customer keeps the 400 on their account to spend on any future purchase. Nothing leaves the drawer.
• Refund now: hand the 400 back at the counter, as cash or on a card. The refund lines must add up to the surplus exactly.

If your shop requires refunds to use the same method the deposit was paid with, you can only give back what actually came in on each method. A deposit of 600 cash and 400 card cannot be refunded as 500 on the card, because only 400 was ever paid by card.

You will not see this step at all on a normal job where the deposit is less than the total.

Cancelling a Job

If a job is cancelled and an advance deposit was taken, you choose how to refund it. You are shown the advance deposit amount and, by default, a refund line for each method it was originally paid in, but you can change the method or split it across more than one before confirming.

There are three ways to refund an advance deposit:

• Cash: hand cash back to the customer.
• Card: refund straight back to the card.
• Store credit: keep the money as store credit. The customer keeps it to spend on any future purchase, nothing is handed back today.

This matters most when an advance deposit was paid by card. Many card machines cannot push a refund back onto a card, so the cashier hands over cash instead. Choosing the refund method properly means the cash drawer and shift totals always match what actually happened at the counter.

By default, an advance deposit can be refunded using a different payment method than it was taken in (for example, a card advance deposit refunded in cash). A shop owner can turn this off in Settings under Service Jobs to require the refund to use the same method the advance deposit was originally paid with. When this is off, only the original method is offered when cancelling the job.

Once the refund lines are confirmed, a refund receipt is printed showing exactly how the advance deposit was paid back. By default, cancelling a job is for managers and admins only, but a shop owner can allow cashiers to cancel a job too, in Settings under Service Jobs. A job that has already been billed cannot be cancelled, and cancelling a job always needs a connection.

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FAQ

Q: Do I have to take an advance?

A: No. Advances are optional. A walk-in job that is done on the spot can be billed once at the end with no advance.

Q: Is an advance counted as a sale straight away?

A: No. It is held as store credit against the job until you bill at pickup. The cash is still in the cash drawer and counted in the shift the moment you take it. The sale itself is recorded once, when you convert the job to a sale, so nothing is double counted.

Q: Can a customer pay more than one advance?

A: Yes. You can take as many advances as you like over the life of the job. Each is its own receipt, and all of them are applied when you bill.

Q: What happens when I cancel a job?

A: If an advance deposit was taken, you choose how to refund it: cash, card, or store credit, and you can split it across more than one. The refund lines must add up to the advance deposit amount exactly before you can confirm. A refund receipt is printed showing how it was paid back. You cannot refund more than was paid in advances.

Q: Why would I refund an advance deposit as store credit instead of cash or card?

A: Store credit means nothing is handed back today. The customer keeps the amount to spend on a future purchase instead of you giving cash or a card refund on the spot.

Q: Can I refund an advance deposit using a different payment method than it was taken in?

A: By default, yes, for example a card advance deposit can be refunded in cash. A shop owner can turn this off in Settings under Service Jobs so a refund must use the same method the advance deposit was originally paid with.

Q: Can a cashier cancel a job?

A: By default, only managers and admins can cancel a job. A shop owner can allow cashiers to cancel a job too, in Settings under Service Jobs.

Q: Why can't I use all of a customer's store credit?

A: Some of it may be an advance deposit held against a service job that isn't finished yet. By default, advance deposits can only be spent on the job they belong to. The POS shows how much is actually free to spend and explains that the rest is reserved. A shop owner can turn this off in Settings if they prefer advance deposits to be spent freely.

Q: What messages might I see?

A: A few checks are built in to keep things accurate:

• You cannot bill a job that has already been billed.
• You cannot edit a job that is closed or cancelled.
• A refund cannot be larger than the advances that were taken.
• If a customer already spent their store credit elsewhere, the amount applied at billing is only what is left, and the balance due goes up to make up the difference.

Q: Can I take an advance while offline?

A: Yes. The receipt prints straight away with "pending sync" shown instead of a receipt number, since the real number is only issued once the advance reaches the server. It is saved on your device and sent through once the connection returns, and you can reprint it with the real number from the job's advance history once that happens.

Q: Can I bill a job while offline?

A: Yes. Your device works out the total and tax using the same rates and figures it would use online, so the amount shown is accurate. The invoice prints straight away with "Queued" shown instead of a sale number. Once the connection returns and the sale syncs, you can reprint the final invoice with the real sale number.

Q: Why can't I cancel a job while offline?

A: Cancelling reverses the job's money and cost figures, so it always needs a connection to keep the numbers accurate.