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summarise the production costs and disbursements
manage our client’s production credit
set the invoice details;
confirm and activate the project; and
monitor all invoices generated and sent to the client
As discussed on the Introduction to VMSX & Starting New Projects page, you will need to consider and confirm many of the details here when you are first setting up a new project.
Confirming and activating your project
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After creating your project and setting up some details, you will need to send and activate your project before you can start delivering any pre-production or videos. This ensures that we have formally confirmed the client’s budget and scope before commencing work on the project.
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For more on the project confirmation email and activating your project, we covered it in detail within the Introduction and New Projects guidelines. |
Overview
The Invoices space is divided into two main views: the Overview and Invoices summary. You can toggle between them using the left-hand menu column.
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The summary of Invoices presents and monitors the admin of every invoice that has been triggered by this project.
Total project price
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This is the only place where you can manage the project price. Irrespective of the delivery details provided elsewhere within the project, each separate price element here can be individually added, labelled, edited, or removed.
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If this project has been created from a sale closed deal through HubSpot, then you should find that your project starts with a single price value, with possibly one additional disbursements value.
You can leave these values the price value untouched, or
You can replace them with a more specific breakdown of production and disbursement costs, or
Adjust them if the scope of the project changes after the project has been handed over to you.
How you choose to handle this the price is entirely between you and your client’s requirements.
If there are any disbursements, you must provide an accurate breakdown of these costs. This assists our Accounts team to match-up your project expenses with their own records.
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Be careful when adding new production or disbursement costs to your projects. Always ensure that any additional costs will be understood by the client. The clients cannot currently see your price breakdown. However, if they are an Admin or Accounts user they can see the current total project price from the Client Hub. |
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Adding a Production Cost
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A production cost is the price we have charged for any Visual Domain services rendered. For example: editing (2 hours), a storyboard, and a 3-hour shoot with one DoP and a Director.
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Go to the blue plus.
Choose “Add Production Cost”
Give your production cost a good, clear name
Add the value and hit “save”.
These After creating them, these are easily edited or deleted by clicking on their pencil edit icon.
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You must round your values to the nearest dollar when adding costs.
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After your project has already been invoiced, only the Accounts team can make further adjustments to Production Costs already in place. |
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Adding a Disbursement
A disbursement covers any agreed costs incurred from a third-party in the course of delivering the project.
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We have ten plenty of recognised disbursement types.
Model/Talent
Drone
Voice-over
Travel
Venue Hire
Gear Hire
Music/Stock Purchase
CAD/TVC Delivery
Props
Other
Studio
Transcription
Freelance Crew Hire
Captions
Hair & Makeup
Accommodation
Catering
When you add a disbursement to the project, you must choose one of these categories.
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To add a new disbursement to your project:
Go to the blue plus.
Choose “Add Disbursement Cost”
Give your disbursement a good, clear name
Select the disbursement type
Add the value and hit “save”.
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Do I have to include all disbursement costs?
Yes, you do.
We want to be able to match-up all of our own invoiced expenses to project deliveries. When accounting VisDom Accounts pays third-party invoices, they refer to these disbursement entries for confirmation. Without these entries, a question will be raised.
The data harvested from accurate disbursement costs will prove valuable when trying to appreciate where we can better focus our production resources and investments.
What if I don’t know all of my disbursement costs? What if I don’t know what my project breakdown will be?
Disbursement and production costs can be added at any time during the Project’s delivery. Especially if the invoice has not yet been sent.
If it can be achieved, it is certainly in the client's (and the Project Manager's) best interest to have all the costs understood upfront. This helps with budgeting and avoids nasty surprises if costs have not been properly communicated to the client and a potential follow-up invoice may be on the way.
Paid with credits
This value represents how much of the project will be paid for by the client’s pre-purchased production credits. The figure is drawn from the information supplied in the Credits Available section lower down on the Invoices page.
Total invoiced
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Note — added 5pm Nov 2021
The requirement here is that you clearly identify your disbursements for Accounts to match-up. The cost represented here should reflect what we are charging the client, not what we have paid the third-party.
Our current PAYG rate card suggests that you should mark-up your disbursement costs by 35%.
What if I don’t know all of my disbursement costs?
What if I don’t know what my project breakdown will be?
Disbursement and production costs can be added at any time during the Project’s delivery. Especially if the invoice has not yet been sent.
If it can be achieved, it is certainly in the client's (and the Project Manager's) best interest to have all the costs understood upfront. This helps with budgeting and helps to avoid nasty surprises when costs may not have been properly communicated to the client and a potential follow-up invoice may be on the way.
Paid with credits
This value represents how much of the project will be paid for by the client’s pre-purchased production credits. The figure is drawn from the information supplied in the Credits Available section lower down on the Invoices page.
Total invoiced
This value represents what has already been invoiced for this project.
For example, if an invoice has already been sent after project confirmation, then any further production costs and/or disbursements added (in consultation with the client) will start to accumulate towards a new invoice.
The “Amount remaining to be invoiced” will factor in all previous invoices already sent for this project.
Credits available
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In the Credits Available section, you will see a list of all prepaid credit packages that your client owns, if there is any credit remaining.
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Credit packs will only show themselves in contexts where your project’s contact(s) have the appropriate permission to use those credits — either they are the owner or they are from the appropriate office.
Applying credit
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You can experiment with any combination of credit across all of the available packages. Once you are ready, click the blue “Save” button. At this point, each credit package will update its Available credit value, and the project itself will recalculate its Amount remaining to be invoiced.
Even at this point, you can change the value(s) of the Credit Used and re-save to recalculate everything.
However, after an invoice has been issued, you will not be able to change the amount of credit used for this invoice. To update this figure requires some back-end accounting footwork and you will need to contact the Accounts team or VMSX Tech Support.
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This should be avoided, as it means your client has been sent an unexpected invoice and is probably not very happy about it. |
If additional project costs require a new invoice to be generated, then more credit can be drawn from a credit package, but credit cannot be returned.
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If credit is used to settle 100% of the Total project price, an invoice will not be sent. Should the client still require a copy of this invoice, you can download a copy from the Invoices summary view and share it. The client can also download it from the project’s invoice information on the Client Hub, if they have Admin or Accounts permissions. |
As soon as you save any value of credit used, you will no longer be able to choose the “50/50” invoice term.
Permissions
Not everyone from your client’s company can access the company’s credit packages.
The credit packages that we offer have two possible levels of access:
Office — this is owned by the company, but assigned to a specific office. Available to be used by anyone assigned to that same office in the VMS and on Client Hub.
Individual — this is owned by one person only. Unless that individual is a contact project, the credit pack will not show on VMSX.
There is no credit pack setting that can make it available across the client’s whole company. This is designed to support larger companies, where each office or department will have their own budgets.
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Smaller companies that wish for a company-wide pack can be managed by ensuring all of their contacts are assigned to the same “office”. Most of the time, this will be true without extra effort on our part. |
You can only apply credit from packs that are already showing within the project. Their appearance in your project indicates that your contact(s) have the appropriate permission to use that credit.
The clients can track their own credit packs, but they are displayed independently of the projects. Client contacts with Admin or Accounting permissions can apply credit pack value to the project for themselves.
Invoice Details
The invoice details dictate when the invoice will be sent, and to whom — most of the time, this will be a contact from their own Accounts team. Ensure you check who the invoice needs to be sent to in order to prevent any delays in payment.
Payment terms.
How long does that client have to pay the invoice?
The VMSX will pull the client’s preference from their Office profile, however you have the freedom to change this per project. The default value is 14 days.
Invoice terms
These terms define when the VMSX will alert our Accounts team that this project’s invoice is ready to send. Accounts will process the invoice, and then seek the producer’s approval before sending.
There are four possible terms for you to choose from, but two of them are only available under specific conditions.
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Invoice term
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The Client Hub allows our clients to settle their own invoices using their production credit packs. If your contact has Admin or Account permissions, then they will be able to access and use the same credit packs that you can see.
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There is more info below on client management of their own credit via Client Hub. |
If you find that you are being asked to sort this out for them, you can also apply production credit to your project. Just type the value of the credit into the Credit Used field. You can type any value into a package’s Credit Used field and the project’s Total amount left to be paiddirectly beneath will immediately recalculate.
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You can experiment with any combination of credit across all of the available packages. Once you are ready, click the blue “Save” button. At this point, each credit package will update its Available credit value, and the project itself will recalculate its Amount remaining to be invoiced.
Even at this point, you can change the value(s) of the Credit Used and re-save to recalculate everything.
However, after an invoice has been issued, you will not be able to change the amount of credit used for this invoice. To update this figure requires some back-end accounting footwork and you will need to contact the Accounts team.
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This should be avoided, as it means your client has been sent an unexpected invoice and is probably not very happy about it. |
If additional project costs lead to a new invoice being generated, you will not be able to apply any more production credit without the assistance of the Accounts team.
Alternatively, using the Client Hub your clients can settle any of their invoices themselves with their remaining production credit balances.
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If credit is used to settle 100% of the Total project price, an invoice will not be sent. Should the client still require a copy of this invoice, you can download a copy from the Invoices summary view and share it. The client can also download it from the project’s invoice information on the Client Hub, if they have Admin or Accounts permissions. |
As soon as you save any value of credit used, you will no longer be able to choose the “50/50” invoice term.
Permissions
Not everyone from your client’s company can access the company’s credit packages.
The credit packages that we offer have two possible levels of access:
Office — this is owned by the company, but assigned to a specific office. Available to be used by anyone assigned to that same office in the VMS and on Client Hub.
Individual — this is owned by one person only. Unless that individual is a contact project, the credit pack will not show on VMSX.
There is no credit pack setting that can make it available across the client’s whole company. This is designed to support larger companies, where each office or department will have their own budgets.
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Smaller companies that wish for a company-wide pack can be managed by ensuring all of their contacts are assigned to the same “office”. Most of the time, this will be true without extra effort on our part. |
You can only apply credit from packs that are already showing within the project. Their appearance in your project indicates that your contact(s) have the appropriate permission to use that credit.
The clients can track their own credit packs, but they are displayed independently of the projects. Client contacts with Admin or Accounting permissions can apply credit pack value to the project for themselves.
Invoice Details
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The invoice details dictate when the invoice will be sent, and to whom — most of the time, this will be a contact from their own Accounts team. Ensure you check with the client who they need the invoice to be sent to. This will prevent delays in payment.
Payment terms.
How long does that client have to pay the invoice?
The VMSX will pull the client’s preference from their Office profile, however you have the freedom to change this per project. The default value is 14 days.
Invoice terms
These terms define when the VMSX will alert our Accounts team that this project’s invoice is ready to send. Accounts will process the invoice, and then seek the producer’s approval before sending.
There are four possible terms for you to choose from, but two of them are only available under specific conditions.
Invoice term | What does it do? | When is this available? |
100% on order submission | Sends the invoice immediately on project confirmation. In reality, this may take up to 2 days, by the time it completes the invoice processing cycle. | Always. |
After key deliverable | Sends the invoice after your project has sent its first key deliverable. (See note below for the definition of “key deliverable”.) | Always. This is selected by default, unless the client has a preferred option in their company profile. |
50% upfront 50% completion | Sends an invoice immediately on project confirmation for 50% of the invoice-able amount. The remaining amount will be invoiced on completion of the first key deliverable. | This option is not available if production credit has been used. |
Fortnightly | Sends the latest invoice-able amount, once every fortnight. Useful only for ongoing projects. | This is only available if the client’s Office profile has an accountant contact and they have chosen “Fortnightly” invoices in the Office preferences. |
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Note: It is not possible to confirm and activate a Project without either a Pre-production item or a video deliverable. There will always be a key deliverable trigger event for the invoice.
Invoice recipient
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The default contact for our invoices is the client’s registered Accountant.
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If you leave the “client” option selected, the accountant contact will receive the invoice. You can optionally add one more CC secondary contact to receive this invoice. To do this, use the Invoice Contact search field to find and select from any of the client’s registered contacts in the VMSX database.
If there is no registered accountant contact, you will need to add a primary contact to receive this invoice.
Note: You can change this the secondary contact at any time, but you cannot change the Accountant contact form within the project.
Sending to a third party
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If you need to send the invoice to a third-party accounts person, you can select this and provide the requisite information here. You will need their:
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If you change, add, or edit any of your Invoice recipient details, you must remember to hit the blue “save” button |
Invoices tab
The summary of Invoices presents and monitors the admin of every invoice that has been triggered by this project.
If any costs are added to the project after the first invoice has been sent, then these will accumulate towards the next invoice.
Follow-up invoices are covered by the 50/50 and fortnightly invoice terms, but you can also manually request a follow-up invoice from the Accounts team.
Invoice details breakdown
Invoice ID — our Accounts team’s reference number
Scheduled date — when the invoice will be sent to the client
Due date — when the client is due to settle the invoice
Price (excl. GST) — corresponds to the “amount to be invoiced” in the Overview.
Status — reflects one of the the following:
To Be Invoiced
Invoiced
Paid
Overdue
PO # — Purchase order number, for the client’s reference. You can add the client’s PO number to the invoice here. The client can also do this for themselves using Client Hub.
Actions — After the invoice has been generated, you will be able to download a copy of it here for sharing with the client, should this be needed. The client has a couple of other options here:
Pay Now — client can use Xero to pay their invoices with credit card or direct debit
Use Credits — client can self-apply any of their available product credit to settle the invoiced account.
What does the client see?
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Watch this brief video walkthrough of how the client can use the Client Hub to manage their own invoices and payments. |
The Client Hub presents an Invoices tab for each of the client’s projects. A small red dot will appear on the Invoice tab when a new invoice has been delivered or an invoice is overdue.
The Invoices tab is only visible to client contact with Admin or Accounts permissions.
The client has a few different views of their invoice information:
The Overview shows the current Total project price. Whenever we add or remove Production and Disbursement costs, the updated project price is immediately reflected here for the client.
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We are currently considering providing the client with the option here to see your Production and Disbursement costs breakdown. Do you think this is a good idea? Tell us what you think. |
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Production Packs
The client can separately purchase and manage their pre-purchased credit packages from the Client Hub, outside of their projects.
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must remember to hit the blue “save” button |
Summary of Invoices
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The invoices tab on the left of Invoice page shows and monitors the admin for every invoice that has been triggered by this project.
If any costs are added to the project after the first invoice has been sent, then these will accumulate towards a new invoice. In most cases, this next invoice will be sent during the very next invoice run from our Accounts team. The only exception to this rule is when a project is already on a fortnightly invoice cycle.
Invoice details breakdown
Invoice ID — our Accounts team’s reference number
Scheduled date — when the invoice will be sent to the client
Due date — when the client is due to settle the invoice
Price (excl. GST) — corresponds to the “amount to be invoiced” in the Overview.
Status — reflects one of the the following:
To Be Invoiced
Invoiced
Paid
Overdue
PO # — Purchase order number, for the client’s reference. You can add the client’s PO number to the invoice here. The client can also do this for themselves using Client Hub.
Actions — After the invoice has been generated, you will be able to download a copy of it here for sharing with the client, should this be needed.
The client has a couple of other options under their own invoice Actions:
Pay Now — client can use Xero to pay their invoices with credit card or direct debit.
Use Credits — client can self-apply any of their available product credit to settle the invoiced account.
What does the client see?
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Watch this brief video walkthrough of how the client can use the Client Hub to manage their own invoices and payments. |
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The Client Hub presents an Invoices tab for each of the client’s projects. A small red dot will appear on the Invoice tab when a new invoice has been delivered.
The client has a few different views of their invoice information:
The Overview shows the current Total project price alongside any balance already paid with credit and the Total left to pay. Whenever we add or remove Production and Disbursement costs, the updated project price is immediately reflected here for the client.
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We are currently considering providing the client with the option here to see your Production and Disbursement costs breakdown. Do you think this is a good idea? Tell us what you think. |
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The Unpaid Invoicesoffers a view similar to the VMSX invoices summary, with the additional options to Pay Now or Use Credits.
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Paid With Creditis only visible to the client when production credit has already been applied to their project. This view shows when the credit was applied, how much was used, and which pack it came from.
The Invoices tab is only visible to client contact with Admin or Accounts permissions.
Production Credit
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The client can purchase, manage, and use their pre-purchased credit packages from the Client Hub.
Using production credits
If a Client Hub user has Admin or Account permissions, their special access to the project’s Invoice tab allows them to settle the invoice using any production credits that project has access to.
The client can only draw from one single credit pack to do this. Unlike our options in the VMSX, the Client Hub does not allow the client to use multiple credit packs for one invoice.
Production Packs menu
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Outside of the projects, the Production Packs menu can always be accessed from the settings menu on the top-right of the Client Hub page. Select “Credits”.
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assess the status and remaining credit for any “officecompany“office-wide” or individual credit packs they personally have access to.
assess any expired credit packs.
Submit an order to purchase new credit packs for themselves. Their Relationship Manager will confirm and process the order for them as soon as possible.
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Info: To read more about processing new credit package orders, see the Creating Starting new projects page. |