Invoices

Prerequisites

• Billing Accounts to understand how billing accounts relate to invoices.

Overview

Invoices are a critical component of the financial management system, allowing for the billing of services rendered through cases. This document outlines the process for creating, modifying, and managing invoices, including the locking mechanisms that ensure invoice integrity.

Invoices are generated from cases. Each case can have 0 or more line items added to it, which represent the products or services provided. Each of the line items will have its own quantity, rate, discount, and tax amount. When you invoice a case, Pilot will sum up all the line items' financial information to create the invoice. The case's doctor-office pair determines the billing account that will receive the invoice.

Each invoice has a balance, which represents the total unpaid amount. The balance is calculated as the total amount of the invoice minus any payments and/or credits applied to it. The invoice is paid off when the balance reaches zero.

warning

Invoices in the system are generated exclusively through the case invoicing process. You cannot create standalone invoices - they must be associated with a case. The only three exceptions are:

• Invoices synced from your accounting system. For example, if you are using a payment processor that connects directly to your accounting system, such as QuickBooks or Xero, you may need to sync payment processing fee invoices back into Pilot.
• Initial balance invoices. When you create a billing account, you can set an initial balance, which will create an invoice with the initial balance amount. That invoice will not have an associated invoice number.
• Payment processing fee invoices. If you have Stripe integration configured, you can set a payment processing fee for each payment made through the customer portal account. This will create an invoice with the payment processing fee amount.

As a corollary, updating invoices is impossible: you must un-invoice the case, make necessary changes to the line items, and re-invoice the case. Un-invoicing a case means deleting the invoice associated with that case and changing the case's status to "Shipped" or "Live".

Creating an Invoice

When you invoice a case, the system automatically performs the following calculations:

• Subtotal: Calculated as sum of (quantity × rate - discount) for each product on the case
• Tax Amount: Calculated as subtotal × doctor-office pair's tax area rate (referenced from the office associated with the pair)
• Total Amount: The sum of subtotal and tax amount

Additional Invoice Details

• Memo Field: Populated with any billing notes from the case
• Due Date: Automatically calculated based on the payment terms configured for the doctor's billing account
• Invoice Date: Set to the current date when the invoice is created. You can change it to the date you want as long as the new date does not fall on a closed billing cycle. If you try to backdate an invoice to a closed billing cycle, the system will prevent you from doing so.

Invoice Locking System

Invoices can be locked to prevent unauthorized modifications. The locking mechanism ensures that once an invoice is finalized, it cannot be altered without proper authorization. There are four locking options available:

1. Manual Locking

• Provides administrative tools for manually locking specific invoices
• Useful for ad-hoc invoice protection when needed
• Requires manual intervention to lock and unlock

2. Automatic Locking on Statement Creation

• Invoices are automatically locked when they become part of a billing statement
• Ensures statement integrity by preventing changes to included invoices

3. Automatic Locking at End of Billing Cycle

• All invoices within a billing period are locked when the cycle closes
• Provides period-end controls for financial reporting accuracy

4. Immediate Locking on Invoice Creation

• Invoices are locked as soon as they are created
• Provides the highest level of invoice protection
• Useful for organizations requiring strict invoice immutability

Updating Invoice Information

Invoices cannot be directly edited once created. To make changes to an invoice, you must follow this three-step process:

1. Un-invoice the case to remove the current invoice
2. Update the case with the necessary changes (products, quantities, rates, etc.)
3. Re-invoice the case to generate a new invoice with the updated information

Invoice Editing Restrictions

You are prevented from editing an invoice under the following circumstances:

1. Locked Invoice Status

• Any invoice that has been locked through one of the four locking mechanisms cannot be modified
• The lock must be removed before any changes can be made (if permitted by your organization's policies)

2. Statement Inclusion

Invoices that have been included in a generated statement cannot be edited This prevents disruption of already-issued billing statements

3. Billing Cycle Restrictions

You cannot backdate an invoice to a billing cycle for which a statement has already been generated This maintains the integrity of closed billing periods

Working with Billing Cycle Restrictions

Problem: You need to backdate an invoice, but the target billing cycle already has a generated statement. Solution:

1. Delete the existing statement for that billing cycle
2. Create or modify your invoice as needed
3. Re-generate the statement to include the updated invoice information

warning

Deleting and regenerating statements should be done carefully, as it may affect already-distributed billing documents and customer payment schedules.