Deposit and balance invoices — Help

A client whose accounts department pays on invoice cannot pay a deposit against a full-value invoice. Hand them a $10,000 document and tell them to send $3,000 and you will be waiting a while, because their system pays what the invoice says. So when a booking is staged as a deposit and a balance, 1pm bills it as two real invoices: a deposit invoice for the deposit, and a balance invoice for the rest.

This article covers how the pair are built, the schedule each one shows the client, raising the balance when the time comes, and the cases where one full invoice is still the right answer.

Two invoices, one event total

Set a deposit on a confirmation and the billing splits in two.

The deposit invoice carries a single line, "Deposit", for the deposit amount. Tax is split across it pro rata, so the deposit invoice's tax is the deposit's genuine share rather than a rounded guess.
The balance invoice is the itemised job, every line as you priced it, less a credit line for the deposit already invoiced.

Add the two together and you get the event total and the event's tax, exactly. Nothing is counted twice, which matters because both are ordinary invoices: they issue, send, take payments, appear in your reports, and push to Xero like any other.

The deposit invoice is raised for you when the client acts on the confirmation. The balance is yours to raise when you are ready, which is usually closer to the event once the final numbers have settled.

The schedule on each document

An invoice for $3,000 with no context is confusing when the booking is worth $10,000. So each of the pair states the whole arrangement.

The deposit invoice says what the balance will be and when it falls due. The balance invoice says what the deposit was. Either way the client's accounts team sees the full picture while the document's own total stays the stage amount, so they pay this invoice and cannot accidentally pay the event value twice over.

One deliberate omission: the deposit is not shown to your client with a due date. The booking is not held until the deposit lands, so quoting a date a fortnight out invites them to leave the date unsecured until then. The balance keeps its due date everywhere, because that one is a genuine future term. Your own deposit due date is unaffected: it is still stored, still editable on the confirmation, and still what drives the overdue reminder you get.

Raising the balance

Open the event's Billing page and, once a deposit invoice exists with a balance still to bill, Raise balance invoice appears beside the billing buttons.

It opens as a draft, like everything else on that page, so you can check it, edit it, and send it when you choose. Staged invoices are fully editable: add a line for the extra hour, drop something the client cancelled, adjust a quantity. The document you send is the document you approved.

When it is one invoice instead

Not every booking is staged, and not every client wants it to be.

No deposit on the confirmation. Nothing changes. The event bills as one invoice, the way it always has.
The client elects to pay in full. If they choose the pay-in-full option (by card, or by declaring a bank transfer), 1pm honours that and raises one full invoice rather than handing them the deposit-stage document.
You decide to bill it in one. A live deposit confirmation carries a Bill the full amount instead panel with a Raise full invoice button. Where the client has already declared they are paying in full, the panel says so and leads with it. It raises a draft and stops there, minting no link and pushing nothing to Xero until you send it.

That last one changes the outcome, not the record. What the client declared is a timestamped account of something they did and stays exactly as it was. If the event has already been billed, 1pm refuses and names the invoice that exists rather than quietly double-billing.

Knowing what the client committed to

Whether a client chose the deposit or the whole amount decides which invoice they should get, and it used to be a click inside the confirmation to find out.

The event's Billing page now shows an intent badge beside the confirmation's status with the amount, and hovering it gives you the method and the date they declared it. It clears itself once the balance is settled. It is a promise rather than money, so it never reads as paid and nothing in 1pm gates on it. A client can declare a deposit and send the lot, or declare and never pay at all.

Where the numbers show up

The Deposits and balances report is the forward view: what is contracted, collected, outstanding and overdue across every signed confirmation.
The Invoices report treats the pair as what they are, two invoices, so an outstanding balance invoice appears in the chase list on its own terms.
Do not add money across document types when reconciling by hand. A deposit paid on a confirmation is mirrored onto its deposit invoice deliberately, so the same money appears on both. Adding them together counts it twice.

Deposits and balances covers setting the deposit on the confirmation in the first place.
Event confirmations covers the agreement the staging comes from.
Pricing an event covers the folio the balance invoice itemises.
Paying by bank transfer covers the client self-serving the invoice they need.
Sending invoices to Xero covers how the pair reach your accounts.