Follow unpaid invoices

The Unpaid page is the aged balance of your debtors: everything your clients owe you on a given date, sorted by how late it is. It tells you whom to send reminders to, and gives your fiduciary the open items list at year-end.

Before you start

Unpaid is part of accounting: the page appears in the menu, under Payments, when accounting is turned on. See Turn on accounting. Without accounting, the Outstanding tab of the invoice list already shows everything still to be paid.

Read the aged balance

In the menu, under Payments, open Unpaid.

1. The date. By default, today. Choose End of last month, End of last year or another past date: the balance shows what was open on that day.
2. The age bands: Not due yet, 1 to 30 days, 31 to 60 days, 61 to 90 days, Over 90 days after the due date. Click a band to see only that band in the table; click again to remove the filter.
3. Agreement with the books compares the total of unpaid invoices with the balance of account 1100 Debtors. Agrees: everything is right. Difference to explain: To Bill lists where the difference comes from, each line leading to the document or account to check.

The total, at the top, includes the reminder fees your clients still owe; To Bill gives them under the number of documents, for example “of which reminder fees CHF 20.00”. It is the same figure as the Outstanding tab of the invoice list.

The Customers / Suppliers switch takes you to the balance of your supplier invoices to pay.

The detail per client

Each row is a client, with their amounts per band and their total. Click a client’s arrow to see their documents (1): each invoice with its date, its due date or its days overdue, and the credit notes deducted. Click a number to open the invoice.

Amounts are in francs. An invoice in a currency for which there is no exchange rate is left out of the totals: its row shows not converted, with its amount in its own currency, and the page sums it up, for example “+ EUR 1'200.00 not converted”. When an older rate was used, To Bill says so: “EUR rate: last known rate, from …”.

The filter bar searches for a client or an invoice number, and filters by Client, Days overdue, Amount and Due date. Views offers Overdue, Over 90 days and Due this month.

From the invoice, you can send a reminder, record a payment or write off the claim.

Export the open items list

1. Choose the date, for example the end of the financial year.

2. Click Export.

3. Choose the document and its format:

   • Aged balance: one total per client and per age band;
   • Open items list: one document per line, with its date, its due date, its days overdue and its open balance.

   

4. Choose PDF (to print or give to your fiduciary) or CSV (to open in a spreadsheet).

The file covers everything open on the chosen date. The table’s filters do not apply to it. Under the total, a line gives the reminder fees it includes.

Write off a claim

When a client will not pay (bankruptcy, certificate of unpaid debt, client who cannot be found):

1. Open the invoice. Under Receivable, click Actions › Write off.
2. Enter the Reason. It appears in the entry and justifies the loss in an audit.
3. Check the Amount lost: by default, everything still owed.
4. If you have a certificate of unpaid debt, enter its number: it will let you recover the claim later.
5. Click Write off.

The invoice’s status changes to Written off and no more reminders are sent for it. The loss is booked and the VAT on the unpaid part is given back to you. If the client pays after all, open Actions › Recovery: the payment is recorded and VAT becomes due again on that amount.

Legal basis

• A bad debt reduces the consideration: the VAT already declared is corrected when the loss is booked, and becomes due again if the money arrives later: Art. 41 VAT Act.
• As a rule, a claim becomes time-barred after ten years, Art. 127 CO. Claims of craftsmen for their work and of retailers for the goods they supply become time-barred after five years: Art. 128 no. 3 CO. The limitation period starts when the claim falls due (Art. 130 CO) and is interrupted in particular by debt collection proceedings or by an acknowledgement of the debt, such as a partial payment (Art. 135 CO).