In Settings, set a deposit percentage for your business. Leave it at 0 and traidhand never asks for a deposit. Set it above 0 and every quote your customer accepts will ask for that percentage of the job as a deposit before it's booked in.
When a deposit applies, the quote shows the deposit amount (including VAT) next to the Accept button, and a note that accepting means agreeing to pay it. The deposit is non-refundable, and the job is booked once it's paid.
Accepting the quote raises a draft deposit invoice for the deposit amount, due in 7 days. Nothing is sent to the customer automatically - you send the deposit invoice yourself, from the Invoices page or by tapping WhatsApp on it, whichever suits the customer.
A job is not booked until its deposit is paid. Until then, the job can't be scheduled, marked complete, or invoiced. Once the deposit invoice is marked as paid, all of that opens up.When you create the final invoice from the finished job, it carries a "Deposit paid" line that deducts the deposit, so the customer only pays the balance.
If a customer has already paid you a deposit outside the app - cash on site, a bank transfer before you quoted - you don't need to put them through the deposit flow again. On the quote, switch on Deposit already paid, then enter the amount they paid (including VAT) and the date it arrived.
With this switched on, the customer isn't asked for a deposit and sees no deposit terms. When they accept, traidhand records a deposit invoice that's already marked as paid, dated the day you entered, and sends that invoice to Xero dated that same day. The payment itself isn't sent to Xero - match the bank line there as you would any other payment. The final invoice deducts it in the same way as an ordinary deposit.
If you get paid in stages (below), a deposit already paid is recorded as a payment against the job's invoice instead, dated the day it arrived. The deposit stage becomes that amount, the middle stages keep their percentages, and the final stage takes whatever is left.
For longer jobs you can take payment in stages - for example a 5% deposit, then 30%, 25% and 25% as the work goes, and 15% when it's finished. In Settings, switch on Take payment in stages and set a name and percentage for each stage. The first stage is the deposit, and the percentages must add up to 100%. Changing them later doesn't affect jobs already accepted.
With stages on, there's one invoice for the whole job, including VAT - no separate deposit invoice and no final invoice:
- The customer accepts. traidhand raises the invoice for the whole job and sends it to Xero. The deposit stage is now due. Send the customer the deposit request from the job, by WhatsApp or email.
- The deposit arrives. Tap Payment received on the job. It's filled in with the stage amount and today's date - change either if you need to. The job is booked once the deposit stage is covered, and you can schedule it.
- A stage is done. Tap Stage 1 complete (then Stage 2, and so on) and send the request. Late stage payments don't stop you working.
- The job is finished. Tap Mark complete. This asks for the final stage, and you send the request in the same way.
- The last payment arrives. Record it with Payment received. When everything is in, the invoice is marked paid.
Every payment request tells the customer how much is due now, how much they've paid, the balance left, your bank details, and to use the invoice number (for example TH-0003) as the payment reference. Their invoice page shows the full schedule: what's paid, what's due now and what's still to come.
Stage payments are made by bank transfer, so card payment isn't offered on these invoices. Automatic reminders, if you switch them on for the invoice, only chase a stage once its week to pay has passed - never the whole balance.
Extras. If the customer asks for extra work, tap Add extras invoice on the job. It's an ordinary invoice for the same customer and site, separate from the stages.Invoices sync to Xero like any other invoice. traidhand never sends payments to Xero - you or your accountant match the bank lines there. Because the customer is told to use the invoice number as their payment reference, a transfer matches the Xero invoice number straight away. The Xero reference field carries the customer and the site instead, so you can tell one job from another at a glance.
When a payment is reconciled in Xero, traidhand reads it back, including part payments against a staged invoice. A payment you recorded in the app and the same payment reconciled in Xero later are counted once, not twice.