vCita's practical and intuitive Payments module lets you get an instant overview of all your business transactions, and then manage them from one place. Some of the many advantages and benefits of working with the Payments module are:
- Automatic categorization of your business transactions into Estimates, Invoices or Payments, so you can easily view and track payment status.
- PayPal and Stripe integration that allows your clients to pay through convenient and secure platforms, and enables direct deposit to your bank account.
- Fully customized invoicing capabilities (US & European Union compliant) that support adding taxes and discounts per line item, payment terms, due date, and your business address and logo to your invoices.
- Customizable Payment Reminder / Take Action messages that are automatically sent to either you or your client.
- Ability to download and/or print invoices and receipts in bulk.
- Ability to generate and export detailed Payments reports.
The following topics explain more about how to work with the Payments module:
- Overview of the Payments Module
- Downloading and Printing Estimates, Invoices and Receipts
- Exporting Payment Reports
- Selecting Your Payment Settings
- Viewing and Processing Received Payments
- Managing Outstanding Invoices and Bookings
For some valuable tips about how vCita can help you simplify and streamline invoicing and payments workflows, watch this short video:
Overview of the Payments Module
The Payments module is divided into the following sub-menus:
- Estimates: Displays all the estimates that you have created and their current status (Sent, Approved, Invoiced, etc.). It also shows you at a glance what portion of your total proposals have been approved/invoiced, and how much is still outstanding. For more information, refer to Viewing and Managing Your Price Estimates.
- Invoices & Bookings: Displays your total expected income from bookings and invoices and the total amount that is currently outstanding. You can also manage bookings, create invoices, record payments, and take other actions from this menu. For more information, refer to Managing Outstanding Invoices and Bookings.
- Payments Received: Lists all payments and their current status (Paid, Incomplete, Refunded, etc.). It also lets you perform actions on payments, such as sending receipts, cancelling payments and so on. For details, refer to Viewing and Processing Received Payments.
Each of the three sub-menus has a similar look and feel. The table below the diagram describes the common features shared by the main pages of the Payments module.
| Number | Section | Description/Notes |
| 1 | Action buttons | Click New to create an estimate or invoice, record a payment, or send a payment link. Clicking Manage Coupons opens the Coupon Settings page, where you can view and handle existing coupons and create new ones. |
| 2 | Export | Lets you download a customized report of your data. For details, refer to Exporting Payment Reports. |
| 3 | Settings | Opens the Payment Settings page. For more information, refer to Selecting Your Payment Settings. |
| 4 | Financial status | This chart lets you easily review your total bookings, outstanding income, total payments and more. Breakdowns vary according to sub-menu and the filtering selected. |
| 5 | Sorting options | Sorts the list below according to client name, date, and more. The sorting options available vary according to sub-menu. |
| 6 | Selection checkboxes | When items are selected, additional bulk action options, such as Download and Print, appear in the row of Action buttons. |
| 7 | Estimates/Bookings /Payments list |
Lists all estimates, bookings or payments and displays important information about each one, such as client, current status and amount. Clicking a row in the list opens a details page that displays more information and allows you take followup actions. |
| 8 | Filtering options | Enables display of only estimates, bookings or payments with certain statuses and/or those related to specific clients. |
Downloading and Printing Estimates, Invoices and Receipts
The Download and Print options, which appear on every sub-menu of the Payments module when one or more items are selected, help make billing and record-keeping quick and easy.
Clicking Download saves selected items locally in file format. If you choose a single item, it is downloaded as a PDF file. Multiple items are downloaded as a ZIP file.
Clicking Print opens a print preview, where you can select printing settings and print the selected item(s). Multiple items are printed in a bulk action.
Exporting Payment Reports
vCita helps make record keeping quick and easy by enabling you to prepare and download payment reports for specific periods of time. You can generate reports for estimates, invoices and booking, or payments received, and the reports can be as general or as detailed as you choose.
To export a report:
- At the upper right corner of the Estimates, Invoices & Bookings, or Payments Received page, click
.
The relevant Report popup opens.
- By default, the time period of the report is the past month. To specify a different time frame, click the calendar icons and select the desired start and end dates.
- By default, all data fields are included in the report (as column headers). To include only some data fields, select the Custom radio button and click Choose Fields.
Then, click the fields that you want to include in the report. The fields that you have selected are displayed in blue. For example:
- By default, the entire list of estimates, payments, etc. is exported. If you want to export only items that match the currently selected filters, select the Filtered radio button.
- Specify the export format by selecting the CSV or Excel radio button.
- Click Download.
The report is exported to your Downloads folder.