Invoices and getting paid

Money in runs on three documents: the estimate (what you propose), the invoice (what you are owed), and the payment (what arrived). Each one can become the next with a click, so nothing is typed twice.

Creating an invoice

Open Invoices and create one. Pick the customer (or add a new one right from the picker), add your lines, and each line carries its income category so the books stay right without you thinking about it. The window moves and resizes like everything else, and closing with unsaved changes always asks first.

Send it by email straight from the invoice, print it, or download a PDF. Your logo and business details come from your company settings, so every document leaves looking like you.

Shipping goods? Open the Shipping card on the invoice (it stays folded away until you use it): the name and address it went to, the ship date, the carrier and the tracking number. Same as bill to copies the customer's own name and address. The invoice then prints a Ship to block beside Bill to, with how it shipped underneath, on screen, on paper and on the emailed copy.

Your license number on the paper

Contractors and other licensed trades usually have to print their license number on every bid and invoice. Add the license under Company on Books Settings (Licenses and registrations) and tick the papers it prints on; it appears under the company's address on invoices, estimates and purchase orders, and the stationery designer gains a Licenses block.

Getting paid online

An invoice can carry a pay online link. Your customer opens it, sees the invoice, and pays; the payment records itself against the invoice and the deposit shows up in your Banking to be matched when the bank confirms it. No portal for the customer to sign up for, just a link that works.

To turn it on, open Connections (in the menu), press Connect on the Stripe online payments row and connect the company's own Stripe account; Stripe opens its own setup page and you come back when it is done. Once Stripe has checked the account, tick Offer "Pay online" on invoices: emailed invoices then carry a Pay this invoice online button. Payments are charged in your books' home currency and dated the day the money settled. Stripe's fee is booked on its own. A refund is recorded by hand.

If you move an invoice to a different customer, the link you already sent stops working, so the first customer can never see or pay the second customer's invoice; share the invoice again for a new link. An invoice whose online payment is still on its way cannot be deleted: void it instead, and the money lands as the customer's credit.

Recording other payments

For a check or a bank transfer, use Receive payment: pick the customer, tick the invoices the money covers, and choose where it deposited. For a part payment, lower what an invoice takes. When the customer paid more than the invoices take (a check for $1,050 on a $1,000 invoice), type what they paid in Amount received: the invoices take their part and the rest stays on the customer as credit, for their next invoice or a refund. With no invoice ticked, the whole payment is credit. A customer who pays in another currency settles their invoices in that currency; credit for them is a credit memo in it.

Sales receipts: a sale paid on the spot

For a customer who pays when they buy, press New sales receipt on the Invoices tab. It is the invoice editor without terms or a due date, plus a Payment card: how they paid, the check or reference number, and where the money went (Undeposited Funds to group into a bank deposit later, or straight into the bank). The card reads Paid in full with the total. Saving records the sale and its payment together; sales tax, discounts and items work exactly as on an invoice.

The receipt prints and emails as a SALES RECEIPT with its date and the payment ("Paid, Cash"), and no balance. In the list it wears a RECEIPT chip. It stays off the customer's statement, because nothing was owed.

A saved receipt changes like an invoice. A new total changes the payment that came with it to the same amount, in the same save, so the receipt stays paid in full; the editor says so before you save. If that payment is already in a recorded bank deposit, matched to a bank line, in a reconciliation, or partly refunded, the save says what to undo first. A new date moves the payment's date with it. A receipt cannot drop to $0.00: void it instead. Voiding (or deleting) a receipt voids its payment too, so no stray money is left waiting in Undeposited Funds. A Copy of a receipt is a new receipt. A customer billed in another currency gets an invoice and Receive payment instead. Exports and the developer API mark each one as a sales receipt.

Taking a deposit with the invoice

When the customer pays something up front - a down payment or a retainer - open Deposit received on a new invoice and type the amount, the date it came in, how they paid and where it went (Undeposited Funds to group into a bank deposit later, or straight into the bank account). Saving records the invoice and the deposit together: the deposit is a payment on the invoice, listed under Payments applied as "Deposit", and the invoice asks only for the balance.

After saving, change or void the deposit from the invoice's payments, like any payment. A deposit cannot be more than the invoice's total or dated before the invoice; for money that came in earlier, date the invoice that day, or record it with Receive payment once the invoice exists. For a customer billed in another currency, save the invoice first and record the deposit with Receive payment, which asks what your bank received in your own currency.

Estimates

An estimate is an invoice that is not owed yet. Send it for approval; your customer can accept it from the link, and one click turns the accepted estimate into the real invoice.

Estimates carry sales tax the way invoices do: tick Tax on each line that is taxable, and the estimate shows the tax and the total your customer is agreeing to. The ticks carry over when it becomes an invoice, which charges the rate in force on the invoice's own date.

Billing a job in parts (progress invoicing). On an estimate, Create invoice opens a window where you choose what this invoice bills:

The whole estimate (or Everything left once part is billed).
A percentage: that share of every line, for example 25%. It never bills more than is left on a line; the round that reaches 100% bills exactly the rest.
Choose amounts: type what to bill on each line.

The table shows each line's estimate, what is billed so far, what is left and what this invoice bills, and the button names the invoice's total. The estimate keeps count: its window shows Billed 50% and offers Invoice more until nothing is left, then it is marked converted. Void one of the invoices and its share can be billed again. Editing an invoice keeps its link to the estimate as long as the line keeps its words.

Any invoice or estimate whose link you shared can have it taken back: the Turn off link icon, next to the link icon, stops the page working at once. Copying the link again makes a new one.

Retainage

On construction work the customer often holds back part of each progress invoice - usually 5 or 10 percent - until the job is accepted. That is retainage: still owed to you, but not due yet.

Hold it back. On the invoice (or on the estimate, so every invoice billed from it starts the same way), open Retainage and type the percent. The card shows what is held and what is due now. It is worked out on the invoice's whole total, sales tax included.
What the books do. The invoice's income is all booked as usual. The held part sits in Retainage Receivable instead of Accounts Receivable, so the aging, the statement and the customer's pay page ask only for the rest. The paper prints Retainage held (due when released) on its own row; it is never shown as paid.
Collect the rest. When everything except the retainage is paid, the invoice reads Paid, with the retainage still shown in its window.
Release it when the job is accepted: open the invoice, and under Retainage click Release retainage, pick the amount (all of it, or a stage) and the date. It is added back to the invoice, due from the release date plus the invoice's own terms, so it is never overdue the day it is released. The customer then pays it like any balance. A release is offered once the rest of the invoice is paid.
Track it on Reports > Retainage: every invoice and bill that held retainage, what was released, and what is still held, by customer or subcontractor and by job.

On the cash basis the held part counts as income when it is paid, not when it is invoiced. A release can be voided until its money arrives (void the payment first if it already has); voiding puts the hold and the due date back. Once something is released, the invoice's total and its percent stay as they are. A sales receipt, a rent invoice, an invoice in another currency and one imported from QuickBooks hold no retainage.

Your customer's portal

Give a customer one private link where they see their whole account: what they owe and what is past due, every invoice, what they have paid and toward which invoice, the estimates waiting for their answer, and their statement, which they can print or save as a PDF. They need no account and no password. Where you take payments online, each open invoice has a Pay button; an estimate opens to approve or decline.

Open the customer under Contacts. In the Customer portal box, type their email and choose Send portal link, or choose Get a link to copy it and send it yourself. The link is shown only once, right after you make it, because only a fingerprint of it is kept.

The box then shows whether the link is live, when it was made, and how many times your customer opened it. The link works for a year. Send a new link replaces the old one, and Turn off stops it at once, together with every invoice and estimate page your customer opened from the portal. Anyone your customer forwards the email to can see the same page, so turn it off if it went to the wrong person.

The email itself only goes out once the "Customer portal links" email is switched on for your account; until then, Get a link always works.

Fixing a payment you already received

Open the invoice and find the payment under Payments applied - the pencil on its row opens the payment itself. Every payment also has a pencil on Payments received, which is the way in for one that pays no invoice. You can change its date, the method, the check or reference number, the memo, and where it was deposited (Undeposited Funds or a bank account).

You can also change how much was received and how much each invoice takes: the table lists the customer's open invoices with what each would owe without this payment, and an Applied box per invoice. Whatever the invoices do not take stays as the customer's available credit. The amount stays put while a recorded deposit or a matched bank line holds it - you can still spread the same amount across different invoices - and a foreign-currency payment, a pay-page payment or one made by Find a match keeps what it applied; the window says which, before you type.

Wondering about Undeposited Funds? It is the drawer between receiving money and the bank: payments wait there so that Record deposit (the button at the top of this tab, which shows how many are waiting) can group them into the one deposit line your bank statement will actually show. If a payment really landed in the bank on its own, edit it and pick the bank account directly.

Paying back an overpayment. When part of a payment is not used by any invoice (the customer paid too much, or the invoice it paid was voided), the payment shows it as Available credit with a Refund button. The refund is a check or bank payment out of the account you pick; the credit comes down by the amount and the payment lists the refund, with a button to void it (the credit comes back). While a refund stands, the payment cannot be voided or deleted, its amount stays put, and it cannot be dated after the refund; what is left of the credit still goes to the customer's next invoice.

A deposit you made with Record deposit opens and saves like any other deposit: fix its date, memo, class or Received from and save. Only its amount and accounts stay put, because they are the sum of the payments it banked. To change those, void the deposit (its payments go back to Undeposited Funds) and record it again.

Sales tax

Charging a different amount of tax. Click the tax figure on an invoice to type another amount, and say why in the box below it: the reason is required, kept with the invoice, and the rate's own figure stays beside it so the books and the return show the difference.

Company settings > Company info > Sales tax on invoices is where the rate lives. Pick the state, type the combined percentage, and say when it starts. A rate keeps up to four decimal places of a percent, so 8.375% is charged as exactly 8.375%. Until a rate exists nothing changes anywhere: no Tax column, no tax line, no new account.

The rate is dated, never overwritten. When your state moves its rate you ADD the new one with the date it starts. An invoice you wrote last January keeps showing the tax it actually charged, and re-printing it a year later shows the same figure. Each taxed line also remembers the rate it was billed at.

What is taxable comes from what you sell. In the card under the rate, tick the income accounts that carry goods. A line billed to a ticked account arrives with Tax already on, and a line billed to a services account arrives off, so you only touch the exceptions. Changing a tick never touches an invoice you already wrote.

A customer can be exempt. On the contact, tick Exempt from sales tax and say why: a resale certificate, a government body, an exempt organisation, out of state, or outside the US. Keep the certificate number with it. Their invoices then charge no tax AND SAY WHY on the paper, which is what matters when somebody asks a year later. If you record an expiry date, the exemption stops on its own when it passes: the invoice charges tax again and the editor tells you the certificate has run out.

Selling into more than one state? Add a rate for each state you are registered in, and set the state on each customer. Everyone is charged their own state's rate. A customer in a state you have no rate for is charged nothing, which is the honest answer, since you do not collect there.

Taxed by address (local rates). Where your state's local rate table has been loaded, the rate is worked out from where the sale goes instead of your one typed rate: the ship-to address first (its state decides which return the sale belongs on, and its ZIP decides the local area), then the customer's own address. A line under the tax says where and why - for example "Taxed at Example County - 8.375% (from the ship-to address)" - and Change picks another area for that one invoice. ZIP codes do not follow county or city lines exactly. Where the state's own official files are loaded, a ZIP that falls in more than one area is settled the way the state says to: by the street and house number first, then by the ZIP+4 (the four digits after the dash), so type the full street address and ZIP+4 when you have them. When the address still cannot settle it (a PO box, a street the files do not list, or a table built from ZIPs only), the line turns amber, the state rate is used, and you pick the right area (on the invoice, or once on the customer under Tax area). California publishes no such files, but its tax agency places a single street address in its tax area, so there the street, city and ZIP (never a name) are sent to the state's own address lookup when you type them, and Tax area says where it was placed. An address it cannot place exactly (a PO box, a street with no number, a misspelling) is never guessed: the state rate is used and the line says why. A sale made on the spot (a sales receipt) is taxed where your business is - set Your own tax area in Company settings > Company info - and so is every in-state sale in a state that taxes where the seller is. Saved invoices never change when a table is loaded or updated: editing one keeps the area it was taxed in unless you change its customer, ship-to or area. Estimates, credit memos and recurring invoices work the same way, and a credit memo returning an invoice can take that invoice's area.

More than one place you sell from. A second store, a branch or a counter at the warehouse goes in Company settings > Company info > Places you sell from: its name, its state and, with an address, its local tax area (the ZIP fills it in where the state has a rate table). Your invoices, sales receipts, estimates and credit memos then offer Sold from under the tax. A sale made on the spot at a place goes on that state's return at that place's rate, whoever the buyer is, and in a state that taxes where the seller is, an in-state sale is taxed at the place it was made. Leave Sold from on Your main place and nothing changes. A place you stop using is switched off, never deleted, so the documents that name it keep their place.

Some states number each of your locations and ask for a line per location on the return (Texas calls it an outlet number and files the lines on its Outlet Supplement). Type that number in the place's Location number. The Sales Tax page then shows Books invoices by place you sell from: each place's taxable sales and tax, with its number, adding up to the return's figures, so each row copies straight onto the state's schedule. Sales with no place named are on the Main place row. On the cash basis the split is not made, and the page says so.

A city or county that collects its own tax. Most local taxes are collected by the state inside its rate, so there is nothing more to do. Some localities collect their own instead: a Colorado home-rule city, some Alabama cities and counties, a Louisiana parish, an Alaska borough. You register with them and file their return yourself. Add each one in Company settings > Company info > Local taxes you file yourself > From the state's list (where the state publishes one - Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Louisiana): search the city, county, parish or borough, see who collects it today, its rate, the most of a sale it taxes (Alaska's caps) and its next change, and press Add (or Police jurisdiction for a city's tax outside its limits). It comes with every dated change of who collects it and every dated rate, by kind of sale where the state sets one, and later updates of the state's list add the newer rates to yours. One the state collects today cannot be added: it goes on the state's own return, so include its rate in your state rate for sales there. In Louisiana each place (a parish's unincorporated area, a city, a district) carries the whole local rate there, so add the place your sale is in, never its parish beside it; its note names the parish collector you file with (two, for a place on a parish line). Then say where it applies, as below.

Or Add a local tax by hand: its name, its state, who collects it (the locality, or a private agent for it) and since when, and a cap if it taxes only the first part of a sale (Alaska's often tax the first $500). Then open it and say where it applies (the state's tax areas, or the ZIP codes that lie wholly inside it where the state has no area table) and type your rate. One general rate is enough for most; add one for an area where it differs, or for a kind of sale it taxes on its own (some cities tax groceries the state does not, at a lower rate - then say which income accounts sell groceries under Rates by kind of sale). Setting a rate registers you, and the Sales Tax page shows its own return.

Your invoices, sales receipts and credit memos then charge it on its own line under the state's tax. When the state's rate for that area already includes the city's part (the usual case: an area's rate is everything charged there), the state's line is charged without it, so nothing is taxed twice - on a $100 sale in a city collecting 4.35% inside an 8.30% area, $3.95 goes on the state's return and $4.35 on the city's. A credit memo for an invoice gives back no more than that invoice charged. If the state takes the tax over, record it on the tax's window (Who collects it, "The state" from a date): sales from that date charge the area's whole rate as the state's tax, and documents already written keep what they charged. An estimate quotes the area's whole rate as one sales tax figure; the invoice it becomes splits off the city's part. Where a local tax is set up by ZIP code instead (no state area table, as in Alaska), an estimate does not show it yet; the invoice charges it. A part of a sale above a cap is shown on the return as its own figure, not as exempt. Not yet covered: a seasonal rate (type it as dated rates), rent a manager collected, a bad debt's local tax, and the locality's own file format.

California's district taxes. California's rate is a statewide part (7.25%) plus district taxes that differ from place to place. A sale picked up at your own place is charged your place's districts. A delivery is charged the delivery address's districts only where you are engaged in business: a store, office or warehouse there, agents taking orders there, or deliveries in your own vehicles; over $500,000 of California sales in this or last year (counting related companies) makes you engaged everywhere. Say which in Company settings > Company info > District taxes: where you are engaged in business (dated: a change applies from its date). The invoice editor then offers Delivered or Picked up at your place under the tax, and says when part of the district tax is left to the buyer. Until you answer, every district at the delivery address is charged, as before, and the editor says the question is open. The Sales Tax page lists District taxes (Schedule A): the taxable sales per district tax area, the form's tax and anything collected above it (excess tax collected). An edit keeps the district rate the document was written with unless you change where it was sold or how it was handed over, and a credit memo gives back its invoice's. Shown on the accrual basis only.

Below it, where the 1% local tax goes: a sale made from one of your places in California is listed under that place, with its location number (Schedule C); a sale shipped from outside California is listed under the county it was delivered to (Schedule B), and a single one of $500,000 or more under the city it went to (Schedule H). A credit memo follows the invoice it gives back. Every place you have in California gets its line, reading None when it sold nothing. A delivery whose county is not known (no area picked on the customer) is counted on its own line so you can fix it. A last line shows the schedules adding up to line 12 of the return (your taxable sales after deductions); register sales and the return's deductions are shown there as one line each, to be placed by hand. The place you sold from decides the schedule, so a warehouse in California that ships orders should be added as a place and picked as Sold from; adjust by hand a sale from your store shipped from stock outside California with title passing there, and one large sale billed in several invoices. Not yet covered: Schedule Q (corrections to an earlier period), vehicles, vessels and aircraft, construction contracts (a jobsite's county), and a buyer's signed declaration.

Rent. An invoice for rent can name its property under Rent for (the rent engine does this for you). Rent is then taxed in the property's state, at the property's local area, by the property's rent tax answer - see Property books, "Sales tax on rent". Picking the property ticks the lines taxed or not to match; you can still change any one. For a property let short-term, a Short stay tick appears: a stay also carries the lodging taxes you collect there, one line each under the sales tax. A county or city room tax that is not on the list can be added under Rates by kind of sale, and lodging taxes > Add your own; only your company sees it.

Each kind of sale at its own rate. Some states sort sales into kinds, each with its own line on the return and sometimes its own rate - Hawaii reports retailing, services, rentals and wholesaling separately and taxes wholesale at a lower rate. Tell TaDa Books what each income account sells (Company settings > Company info > Rates by kind of sale, and lodging taxes) and set your rate for a kind where it differs. A line then takes its kind's rate, and the chip next to the tax says how many rates the invoice carries. Where a state turns a resale certificate into its wholesale rate (Hawaii), a customer marked exempt for resale is charged the wholesale rate instead of nothing. You cannot type one tax figure over lines at different rates; change a line instead.

Changing the tax on one invoice. Click the tax figure on the invoice and type what you want charged. The invoice records that the figure was moved and keeps what the rate said beside it, so your books and your return stay honest about the difference. Click Use the rate to put it back.

On the return. Taxed invoices join the sales tax filing for their state and period alongside any counter sales, so a books-only company gets filing periods from its invoices. Each state's registration says how often you file (monthly, quarterly, twice a year or yearly), which month its filing year starts in (quarters starting in March run March to May, June to August, September to November and December to February), and how the tax is rounded: per line (each line rounded to the cent, then added) or on the invoice total (taxed once). The state's usual rule is filled in; change it only when your state says otherwise. An invoice with a discount that lowers the tax is always taxed once on its discounted total, since the discount belongs to the whole invoice rather than to any one line.

Filing and paying. The Sales Tax tab in your books lists every period you owe a return for, in each state you are registered in: what you charged, what you owe after credits, and what you have filed and paid. Register a state with the gear, press File when you have filed a period on the state's site (you can record the payment in the same step), and Pay when the payment goes out. Pending credits are shown as their effect on the next filing: minus lowers what you owe, plus adds to it. Anyone who can work in the books can file and pay; someone who can only read the books sees the returns, prints and exports them, but has no File, Pay, Unlock or settings buttons. Office Cash, a store's safe, is offered as a way to pay only to a company with a store.

By kind of sale on the return. In a state that sorts sales into kinds, a filing shows your figures by the return's own lines - gross, exempt, taxable and tax for each, with the areas inside each where local rates are in use, always adding up to the return. Where the state's gross includes the tax passed on to the buyer (Hawaii), a Gross for the form column shows that figure.

By area on the return. When local rates are in use, a filing shows your books invoices by local area (taxable sales and tax per area, with a "Not by area" row for anything taxed at the state rate, so the column always adds up), and lists any invoice that fell back to the state rate and why, so you can fix it before you file.

Credit memos give the tax back. A credit memo's lines carry the same Tax tick as an invoice's, so crediting returned goods hands back the tax they were charged, your Sales Tax Payable comes down, and the memo reduces the sales tax return for the month it is issued in - the same way a refund does.

A credit for an invoice gives back what the customer paid. Pick the invoice under For invoice on the credit memo. Its lines (and any discount) are copied in for you to trim to what came back, and the tax is worked at the rate on that invoice's date - so a return after a rate change refunds the tax the customer was actually charged, and a customer who was exempt when they bought gets no tax back even if their certificate has lapsed since. The memo still lands on the return for its own month. Leave For invoice empty for a credit that is not a return of one invoice; it is then taxed on its own date.

Restocking fees and credits that refund no tax. Keep a restocking fee back by adding it to the memo as a line below zero with Tax unticked: the returned goods and their tax come off the return in full, and the fee you kept counts as an untaxed sale (where your state taxes the fee, tick it). A credit that is not a return - a missed early-payment discount given after the fact, say - goes on a line with Tax unticked: the customer's balance comes down, and your taxable sales and tax stay as they were.

After you file. Editing, voiding or deleting an invoice whose month was already filed is allowed - you get a caution note, never a block - and if the change moves the tax or the taxable amount, the difference carries to your next return automatically, listed there by the invoice it came from. Fixing a memo or a due date changes nothing and carries nothing.

Invoices imported from QuickBooks. QuickBooks records an invoice's tax as a line on its Sales Tax Payable account, so imported invoices arrive with the tax as a line item. When TaDa Books spots that, the QuickBooks card in Company settings offers to recognise it - it names the account, counts the invoices (and the imported credit memos that gave tax back) and totals the money, and one click converts them so they reach your sales tax filings, with the credit memos netted against the invoices. Nothing happens unless you say so. Once recognised, an imported invoice or credit memo keeps the rate QuickBooks charged when you edit it, even if your own rate table says something else or has no rate at all; type the tax yourself to change it.

Customers in other states. Each customer is charged their own state's rate - that is how sales tax works across state lines. Set the customer's state on their contact card (their address usually suggests it for you). In a state where you collect, their invoices carry that state's rate; in a state where you are not registered, they are charged nothing - the buyer owes their own state use tax - and the sale still counts toward that state's registration threshold. The Sales Tax page's "Where you're heading" panel watches those totals and tells you when a state expects you to register; adding a tax rate for a state signs it up for filings automatically.

One thing to know: an invoice billed in a foreign currency cannot carry sales tax yet.

When something changes

Edit an invoice at any time, paid or not; its history keeps who changed what. Once money is applied (a payment, a credit memo or a write-off), the customer stays and the total cannot go below what is applied; the balance follows the new total.
Voiding a paid invoice works like deleting one: its payments stay as the customer's available credit, and an applied credit memo gets its credit back.
A credit memo handles returns or goodwill and applies against open invoices. When a line names a stocked item, the item goes back on the shelf and its cost of goods is reversed; voiding the memo takes it off again. Edit on a credit memo opens it filled in; what is already used of it stays used.
Refund on a credit memo pays the customer back out of the credit that is left: pick the date, the amount, how it was paid and the bank or cash account it came from. The refund is its own check or bank payment, and the customer's credit and balance come down by the same amount, so the Aging and the Balance Sheet agree. To undo it, void the refund on the memo (the credit comes back); the memo itself cannot be voided or deleted while a refund stands.
An estimate that became an invoice can still be edited or voided - an estimate never posts, so the invoice is not touched. A signed estimate is reopened first, so the signature never sits on numbers the customer did not see.
A payment that Find a match tied to a deposit already in your books can be voided or deleted on its own: the invoice reopens and the deposit stays exactly as it was. While the payment sits on it, the deposit's memo, class and payee can still change in Transactions; its amounts and accounts cannot, and the message names the invoice.
A recurring schedule copies each line's item and job onto every invoice it makes. If its customer or an account it uses is made inactive, the schedule pauses and says why; make it active again, then resume.
Voiding keeps the document with a line through it, so numbering and history stay intact.

Keeping an eye on what is owed

The books' Overview and the aging views under Reports show who owes what and for how long, and a statement for any customer gathers their activity in one document you can send. The statement lists the same open items as the aging: open invoices, credits not yet used, money received but not yet applied, and any journal entry made to the customer's account.

Discounts

Open the Discount card on an invoice or an estimate and choose Percent or Amount, then type it. The invoice shows the lines' subtotal, the discount as a minus, the sales tax and the total, on screen, on paper, in the email and on your customer's payment page.

Tax is charged on the discounted price. That is the rule for a discount you give, in nearly every state. The discount is spread over the lines in proportion to their amounts, so only the part on taxable lines lowers the tax. For example, $800 of taxable tiles and $200 of labour with 10% off: $80 comes off the tiles, so tax is charged on $720.

A discount someone else pays you back for (a manufacturer's coupon, a rebate): tick Paid back by a manufacturer or another company. Most states tax the full price then; a few (Texas, Massachusetts) still tax the discounted price. TaDa Books reads which applies from your customer's state.

More than one discount on a sale. Once the first is typed, Add another discount adds a second (and a third). They apply in order: a percent is of what the discounts above it leave, so 10% and then 10% on $100 is $19 off. Each follows its own tax rule. California's own example is a $1 manufacturer's coupon and your store's extra $1 off a $5 item: the coupon stays taxed and your dollar comes off, so tax is on $4 and the customer pays $3.33. The paper shows each discount on its own row. Estimates, credit memos, copies and repeating invoices keep the list; billing an estimate in parts shares each discount out the way a single one is.

Discounts post to a Discounts Given income account, made the first time you use one; pick a different income account in Settings > Accounting > Discounts. Sales by Item lists them on their own Discounts row.

An estimate's discount carries over when it becomes an invoice. Billing an estimate in parts, a percent discount applies to each invoice; an amount is shared out by the part billed, and the last invoice takes exactly the rest.

Credit memos take a discount too. When you credit a sale that had one, give the memo the same discount: the customer gets back what they actually paid, the tax given back is worked on the discounted price, and the discount comes back off Discounts Given (Sales by Item's Discounts row nets it).

Sales receipts are deposits in Transactions, with no sales tax worked out on them. For a discount there, add a line to your Discounts Given account as a minus.

Writing off an invoice that had a manufacturer's coupon in a state that taxes the full price: the bad debt is only what the customer failed to pay, so the sales tax claimed back is on that part. The tax on the coupon's share stays in the loss, and the write-off window says how much.

A discount for paying early (2/10, Net 30)

Give a payment term an early-payment discount in Books settings > Payment terms: a Discount % and the days it stays open (If paid within). "2% 10, Net 30" is 2 and 10 with 30 days to pay. An invoice saved with that term keeps the offer, prints "2% off the price if paid by" the last day, and changing the term later never changes an invoice already written.

When the money arrives inside the window, Receive payment shows Take 2% on the invoice's row. One click takes it: the amount to apply drops to match, and the footer counts the discount. You can type a different discount, give one after the date or on an invoice with no offer (the plus), or remove it.

What happens to the sales tax depends on the state. California and Washington lower the taxable sale by a discount for paying early, so the customer's tax comes down with it: on a $100 sale plus $8.25 tax, 2% off leaves $98 and $8.09, and the customer pays $106.09. The row shows the tax that came off, and your return reports the lower sale. If you are not giving the customer that tax back, untick Tax too: the tax then stays as charged (Washington says the discount is not deductible for sales tax that way). New York taxes the full price whatever is paid, so there the tax stays and the return reports the full sale. Where nobody has recorded a state's rule, the tax stays unless you tick it.

The discount posts to Discounts Given (pick another income or expense account under the list), and the tax part comes off Sales Tax Payable. The invoice shows it beside the payment, on screen, on paper, in the email and on the customer's statement. Voiding or deleting the payment, or taking the invoice off it, takes the discount back; so does voiding the invoice. You can also take one back on its own from the invoice. An invoice with a discount taken keeps its total and tax until the discount is taken back.

Not yet: a discount on an invoice in another currency, and paying online from the payment page (it asks for the full balance).

Repeating an invoice

For a retainer or any bill that goes out on a schedule, open an invoice you already wrote and press Memorize at the bottom of its window. Pick how often (weekly, every two weeks, monthly, quarterly, yearly or your own), the next date, and when it ends (never, on a date, or after a number of invoices). Each new invoice copies the customer, terms, memo and lines. The Recurring invoices icon on the Invoices toolbar lists every schedule, with pause, edit and delete.

Email each invoice to the customer. Tick it in the schedule window and every invoice the schedule makes is emailed to the customer the moment it is made, the same email the Email button sends (with the pay button when online payments are on). The window shows the address it goes to, or says the customer has none yet. A schedule that catches up after a pause makes the missed invoices but emails only one dated within the last week, so a customer never gets a pile at once; the list marks a schedule whose last invoice was not sent and says why.

Giving credit back

A credit memo records money you owe a customer back: a return, a mistake, a price lowered after the fact. Pick For invoice to give back what one invoice charged, at that invoice's tax rate. When you save a new credit memo its own window opens, where Refund pays the customer back by check or bank payment and Apply to invoices uses the credit against what they still owe. Leave it and it stays as credit on the customer.

Late fees

TaDa Books can charge late fees on invoices that are past due, the way you set it up, in one of two styles:

Interest by the day: an annual rate on each overdue balance for the days it has been late, charged again for the new days each time you assess.
A fee per overdue invoice: a flat amount, a percentage of what is still owed, or both, charged once per invoice when it turns overdue (past the grace days). A customer billed in another currency is charged the percentage only.

Either way the old invoices are never changed: each assessment makes one late-fee invoice per customer, dated that day and due on receipt.

Set it up once in Settings > Accounting > Late fees. Pick the style under How late fees are charged. For interest:

Annual rate (%): for example 18. Leave it empty to switch late fees off.
Minimum charge: charged instead when a customer's late fees come to less.
Grace period (days): an invoice is charged only once it is past due by more than this many days.
Count days from: the due date (usual) or the invoice date.
Post late fees to: the income account the charges go to. Whether a late fee is taxed follows that account's own taxable setting. If your chart has no account for late fees yet, type a name (Finance Charge Income, say) and pick the add option at the bottom of the list.
Charge late fees on unpaid late fees too: off unless you want it.

For a fee per invoice, Flat fee and Percent of the balance take the place of the rate and the minimum (leave both empty to switch late fees off), and there is no day-count choice: a fee is due once the invoice is past due by more than the grace days.

What you may charge is set by your state and your agreements with customers; these are your own figures.

Charge them with the timer button on the Invoices toolbar, Assess late fees. Pick the day (today, or an earlier day), and the window lists every customer with an overdue invoice: each invoice's days, the balance charged and the amount, and the customer's total. Untick anyone you want to spare, or search to narrow the list, then press Assess. Each ticked customer gets one finance-charge invoice, dated that day and due on receipt, which you can send like any other invoice.

Days already charged are never charged twice: assess again next month and only the new days count. If you void a finance charge, its days can be charged again.