A club often creates its invoices, checks them for a week or a month, then sends them. In the meantime, the planned due date may already have passed. So that you never have to correct the dates by hand, Plugin.ch sets the dates when the invoice actually goes out: when it is printed or sent by e-mail.

An invoice has four dates:

The periods are set in Settings → Manage invoicing, for each payment slip template: Invoice due date (in days) and Reminder due date (in days).

As long as an invoice has been neither printed nor sent, its due date is provisional. It is never considered overdue and cannot be reminded, even if the date entered has passed: the debtor has not received anything yet.

In Open invoices & reminders, it appears with the label Not sent yet, and the suggested next step is to send it.

When you print the invoice or send it by e-mail:

• the document date becomes the day of printing or sending;
• a due date still to come is kept as it is;
• a due date that has already passed is replaced by the day of sending + the period in the field Invoice due date (in days).

Example with a 30-day period: an invoice created on 1 September with a due date of 30 September and sent on 7 October will be due on 6 November. The same invoice sent on 20 September keeps its due date of 30 September.

Payment in several instalments

With several due dates, only those that have already passed are replaced; the later ones do not change. The number of due dates does not change, so neither does the amount of each payment slip. Example with a 30-day period, sent on 7 October:

Once the invoice has gone out, its dates are fixed. If you reprint or resend it later, it keeps the same document date and the same due dates. The PDF, the invoice list, the Open invoices & reminders page and the automatic reminders all use the same due date.

• The amount changes (membership fee changed, family member added to the invoice, item added or removed): the invoice must be sent again. Its due date becomes provisional again, and the next printing or sending sets a new document date and new due dates, using the same rule as in point 2.
• You change the due date yourself in the Edit invoice window: the chosen date is kept as it is. A new date that has already passed is refused.
• You give more time: use Extend due date (⋯ menu of the invoice, or selection bar). The extension is recorded in the invoice file with its reason. For payment in several instalments, only the current due date is extended.

If you edit an invoice group, its due date is only carried over to the group's invoices if you have changed it. It then only applies to unpaid invoices that are not in a reminder. Invoices already in a reminder keep the due date of their reminder.

The due date of a reminder follows the same logic: it is set when the reminder is first printed or sent, at that date + the period in the field Reminder due date (in days). This field can contain one period per level: "10-5-5" gives 10 days for the 1st reminder and 5 days for the following ones.

Reprinting the reminder does not change its due date. To give more time, use Extend due date. Changing the due date in the Edit invoice window has no effect on a reminder in progress: the window then shows the reminder's due date.

For the full procedure, see the article Manage payment reminders.