Hey guys, love your service at Bullet. Quick question, I can’t find the answer on Bullet community: I am in the middle of a project, which has three milestones, with payment for each. I have delivered milestone 1 and been paid for it. Milestone 2’s date has passed and I want to send a reminder for payment. Would I be best creating an invoice for milestone 1, saying PAID, and send it with an invoice for milestone 2 saying DUE? Or send an invoice for the full amount, with 3 separate line items in the invoice ( one for each milestone), noting M1 has been PAID? Or send an invoice for M1, saying PAID, and send an estimate for M2? What’s the protocol from a legal/Bullet standpoint?

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Hey guys, love your service at Bullet. Quick question, I can’t find the answer on Bullet community: I am in the middle of a project, which has three milestones, with payment for each. I have delivered milestone 1 and been paid for it. Milestone 2’s date has passed and I want to send a reminder for payment. Would I be best creating an invoice for milestone 1, saying PAID, and send it with an invoice for milestone 2 saying DUE? Or send an invoice for the full amount, with 3 separate line items in the invoice ( one for each milestone), noting M1 has been PAID? Or send an invoice for M1, saying PAID, and send an estimate for M2? What’s the protocol from a legal/Bullet standpoint?

  1. thepalvgm October 3, 2016
    Thanks in advance...

1 answer

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Peter Connor ⋅ Staff October 3, 2016
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Hi,
That’s great. Reminders are a feature on our list. It’s awkward right? You’re trying to chase money but keep the client happy.
I’d recommend keeping the invoices separate. Invoices are actually legal documents so keep it simple. 
Also sending new invoice for milestone 2 unpaid as opposed sending an invoice with milestone 1 paid and 2 unpaid is confusing. 

You just want to get paid for Milestone 2, so bill for milestone 2. Nice and simple. 
You can resend the invoice here is how I’d do it. Hope that helps. 

Pete

#answer-4128
  1. thepalvgm October 3, 2016
    Thanks Pete, you're right - it would be clearer to just invoice for M2.
    However, I did not invoice them at all for M1 - do they need a copy of that legally? Let's say I invoice for M2, they pay it and then they pay M3 without prompting, they will only have an invoice covering a third of the job. I should still create three separate invoices for the three milestones in Bullet for my own sake, but do they need a copy of each eventually?
    Aaarggh. Such a minefield. At least Bullet does some of the work for me...
  2. thepalvgm October 3, 2016
    Thanks Pete, you're right - it would be clearer to just invoice for M2.
    However, I did not invoice them at all for M1 - do they need a copy of that legally? Let's say I invoice for M2, they pay it and then they pay M3 without prompting, they will only have an invoice covering a third of the job. I should still create three separate invoices for the three milestones in Bullet for my own sake, but do they need a copy of each eventually?
    Aaarggh. Such a minefield. At least Bullet does some of the work for me...
  3. thepalvgm October 3, 2016
    I just emailed this reply - not sure which method is better to contact you!
  4. Peter Connor October 3, 2016
    No the reply works.
    So you've been paid for M1, then don't send them anything for that yet.
    Let them pay you for M3 too.
    Then at the end of the job send them a Client Statement that's basically a statement of what they've paid. If they request an invoice for M1 you can just create it and mark is as paid.
    You should have created one anyway to record the money coming in.
    Pete
  5. thepalvgm October 3, 2016
    Yeah, that's where I started to get confused. I created an M1 invoice, then an M2 - then deleted them both and created an invoice with line items for each of the three milestones so the whole job was on the invoice. So I'll send an invoice for M2 and then a client statement at the end. Thanks a million

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