Add and track your mandates

A mandate is a client’s company that your firm follows in To Bill. This guide shows how to add one, who looks after it, and what you can see in it.

Before you start

Only the firm’s Owner and Admin members add and assign mandates. A Collaborator or a Viewer sees the mandates assigned to them.

A company becomes a mandate in one of three ways:

Situation	What you do
You keep the books and the client does not use To Bill.	You create the company from the cockpit.
The client uses To Bill, or is going to.	You invite them: they link their company to your firm.
The client has already invited you into their company, from To Bill.	Nothing: the company appears in your cockpit, with the rights they gave you.

Create a client’s company

1. In the Overview, click Add mandate, then stay on the Create tab (1).

2. Enter the Company name. The Email (optional), Address, Postcode, City, Canton and VAT no. (CHE-…) can wait.

3. Click Create mandate (2). The mandate appears in the overview, assigned to you.

   

You are an administrator of this company in To Bill. The first time you open it with Open in To Bill, complete its details: its 7-day free trial starts. After that, it needs its own subscription, taken out in To Bill (see Your subscription).

Give the client access later

The client can work in their company once you invite them into it, from To Bill: your account menu, at the bottom left, then Users. See Users and roles.

Invite a client to link their company

The client receives an email. They sign in, or create their account, then choose the company to link to your firm. That click is their consent: without it, you see nothing.

1. In the Overview, click Add mandate, then the Invite client tab (1).

2. Enter the Client email and, if you know it, the Company name (optional).

3. Click Send invitation (2). The invitation is valid for 14 days.

   

Your email address must be confirmed. Otherwise, the Invite client tab says so first of all and keeps Send invitation greyed out, with Resend the confirmation email: open the email you receive, click its link, then come back to invite. See Your firm’s team.

Follow your invitations in Team, under Client invitations. Resend sends the email again: the invitation is valid for another 14 days. Revoke deactivates the link.

Status	What it means
Pending	The client has not opened the invitation yet.
Registered	The client has opened the invitation but has not linked a company yet.
Linked	Done: the company is a mandate of your firm.
Revoked or Expired	The link no longer works. Send a new invitation.

What your client sees

1. The client opens the link in the email. If they already use To Bill and their email address is confirmed, they also see, at the top of their dashboard, The firm … invited you to link your company. They click View invitation (1). Without a confirmed address, this banner does not show: the link in the email is enough (see Confirm your email address).

   

2. The Firm invitation page opens. Without an account, they click Sign in or Create an account. Without a company, they enter its name, then click Create and link.

3. They choose the company under Which company should be linked to this firm? (1), then click Link to the firm (2).

   

The invitation is personal: only the invited address can accept it, and only an administrator of the company can link it. In your cockpit, the mandate appears straight away, assigned to the firm’s Owner. Then assign it to whoever looks after it.

Find a mandate

Above the cards, the search and filter bar (1) sorts and narrows the list:

• Mandate name… searches by name.
• Books, Health, VAT and Owner filter the list. More filters adds, for example, To do, Open tasks, Books on or Closing late.
• Views (2) offers ready-made lists: My mandates, To do, VAT within 30 days, Closing late. To keep your own filters, choose Keep this view under a name.
• Sort by orders the mandates, by default from most to least urgent.

The button to the right of the bar switches from cards to the table. In the table, Columns (3) shows other figures, such as the financial year’s sales or profit. Monthly revenue and Estimated cash are in francs: each invoice is converted at the rate of its day, and an amount in a currency without an exchange rate is not counted; it shows under the figure, for example “+ USD 800.00 not converted”.

Tick mandates in the table to act on several at once: Export (CSV), Start a process, Export the accounting.

Filters stay in the address

The page’s address keeps your filters: send it to a colleague and they see the same list. See Filters and views.

Assign a mandate

A mandate’s assignees are the people in the firm who look after it. A Collaborator or a Viewer only sees their own mandates.

1. Open the mandate, then the Access tab. Or, on the mandate’s card, open the … menu.

2. Click Assign.

3. Tick the people in the firm, then click Save.

   

Nobody ticked? The mandate stays with the firm, Unassigned, until you assign it. To remove a person, click Remove access next to their name, in the Access tab: they immediately lose the access the firm had opened for them in this company.

Rights on a mandate

In the cockpit and in To Bill, you see and do what the company allows you to.

• A company created by the firm, or linked by the client: each assignee receives the rights of the fiduciary role. They see and edit invoices, clients, expenses and collections; they keep the books and export them; they view the documents. They do not manage users, settings or the subscription. A firm Viewer receives viewing rights only.
• A company that invited you itself: you keep the role it gave you. The firm cannot extend your rights.

A Not assigned to you card means that the mandate belongs to the firm but you are not in charge of it: an Owner or an Admin of the firm assigns it to you in the Access tab. A Figures not available to you card means that the company has not opened its figures to you: ask it for a role that includes Dashboard · View. The cockpit always names a right as To Bill’s Users page does, for example Accounting · View.

When the client ends the mandate

The client sees your firm in To Bill, under Settings › Fiduciary firm, with its assignees. An administrator of the company can click End the mandate (1) there.

The firm’s people then immediately lose their access to the company, which disappears from your cockpit. Its data stays as it is. To take the mandate on again, send a new invitation.

Legal basis

The fiduciary acts as an agent, within the limits of the mandate the company gives them. They account for their management at the company’s request: Art. 394 para. 1, 396 para. 1 and 400 para. 1 CO.