How to Create an Invoice on Xero
Xero is the platform we use for invoicing and processing payments.
Instructions for adding subscription dates to invoices:
We have recently (Feb 2021) implemented a Xero software add-on (called Flowrev) to help finance track and report revenue across the period of the subscription (required under accounting rules). This means that all customer invoices now need to include the period of the subscription in the description line of the invoice.
- For most Australian schools, subscriptions commence 1 Jan and end 31 Dec (note for ease we have assumed the Australian school year starts 1 Jan and ends 31 Dec)
- There will be some cases where schools sign up late (ie the contract commences after the start of the school year), and in those cases the subscription start date will be the date of commencement of the contract (or first usage date if earlier). For example, a school signs up on 15 Mar, the subscription period would be 15 Mar commencement and 31 Dec end.
- Some schools sign up for multiple years. The subscription period in the invoice will be >1 year only if the school has been invoiced for multiple years. For example, a school is invoiced for two school years in Jan 2021, the subscription period would be 1 Jan 21 to 31 Dec 22
- International schools subscriptions start 1 Sept and end 31 Aug
- There will be many examples where a school starts a subscription at the beginning of a school year but the invoice is not sent until later. In these examples it is fine to enter the start date as 1 Jan (for Australia) as the software will pick up the earlier start date and still pro rata the subscription across the school year (with a 'catch up' in month 1)
Formatting subscription dates in the invoice description - This is very important. The curly bracket formatting allows the software to pick up the dates automatically when syncing with Xero. In the invoice description line enter the subscription dates as follows:
Subscription dates: {DD/MM/YYYY-DD/MM/YYYY}