Claims and invoices
Pages: Claims & Invoices (every job) · a job's Invoicing tab
A progress claim is how you bill a client for the work done in a period under a contract. In Base a claim is drawn down from the job's schedule of values (the contract broken into claimable lines), holds retention at the job's percentage, and goes to Xero as a sales invoice. It keeps the name progress claim because it is a payment claim under security-of-payment law. The job's Invoicing tab is where claims are raised. Claims & Invoices is every claim across every job, with where it sits — Draft, Submitted, Approved, Disputed, Paid or Voided — and the send, chase, status and credit-note actions on each row.
- The Claims & Invoices module must be on (Settings → Team modules).
- The job needs a contract sum (the signed price, ex GST) and a client company with a contact who has an email address. The Invoicing tab's Getting paid on this job checklist walks you through both.
- The job needs a schedule of values, generated from the approved estimate and locked before the first claim.
- Client payment terms should be set on Settings → Finance. They stamp the due date on every claim you send.
- Xero connected (Settings → Integrations) if you want each claim to become a sales invoice.
Until the first claim has gone out, the Invoicing tab opens with Getting paid on this job: five steps, ticked off from the job's own records, with the next one highlighted. Where Base can do the legwork there is an Ask Base to do it button that opens chat with the request ready.
- Record the contract. Press Enter the contract sum and type the signed sum, ex GST. Every claim is measured against it. Without one Base measures against the estimate value and says so.
- Know who to bill. Open the Client tab and make sure the client company is linked with a contact who has an email address. The claim is emailed to that contact.
- Build and lock the schedule of values. Press Generate from estimate. Lines are grouped by cost code and scaled to the contract sum (or marked up by the project margin when no contract sum is set). Check them, then press Lock the schedule.
- Raise the first claim. Press Claim from schedule (below). If a deposit was agreed when the job was won, the step reads Invoice the deposit instead and opens a one-off invoice with the deposit already written in.
- Send it. Press Open the draft and send it from the claim's row.
Once a claim has gone out, the checklist steps aside and a single Next line shows anything still undone.
- On the Schedule of values panel, press Claim from schedule. A Period (for example "Works to 30 September") and a Claim date appear above the lines, and the table gains a This claim column beside Scheduled, Claimed to date, the percentage and Remaining.
- Enter this period's amount per line, ex GST. A line cannot be claimed past what remains on it; if it is, the error names the line and Create draft claim stays disabled. Lines you leave blank are recorded at zero for this period.
- As you type, the summary shows the Work value (the sum of this claim's lines), the Retention held at the job's percentage, the GST and the Total to client.
- Press Create draft claim. The claim appears in the claims list as a Draft, numbered in sequence, and the schedule's Claimed to date column moves at once.
A draft can still be edited or deleted from its row. It owes nothing and counts in no total until it is sent.
New invoice on the command strip is for an amount not tied to the schedule — a deposit, for example. The form takes the contact, dates, an invoice number and reference, a description, and line items with their tax rate. It is always created as a Draft; the status field reads "Send it from the claims list to submit it".
- Press Send on a draft's row. The dialog fills in To with the client contact's email; change it, add anyone to Cc, and write a short Message if you like — it appears above the claim summary.
- Press Send claim. Base produces the claim PDF from your claim template and emails it from your business.
Sending is submitting. The moment the email has gone, the claim is frozen, its issue date is stamped, its due date is set from your client terms, and your automations are told. If the email or the PDF fails, nothing changes: the claim stays a draft and the dialog says why.
Sent it another way? At the foot of the dialog, Mark as sent outside Base freezes and dates the claim exactly as if Base had emailed it, without sending an email. Confirm with Yes, mark it sent.
An issued claim can be re-sent from the send icon on its row; a re-send does not change its dates.
Press the status icon on an issued claim's row ("Record approval, a query, a payment or a void"). The dialog only offers what can actually happen next:
- Approved by the client.
- Queried by the client, with what the client says. On a claim made under the Security of Payment Act, that is their payment schedule, and recording it stops the schedule-due clock.
- Query resolved — awaiting payment again.
- Paid in full: the date received and the amount received, inc GST, with what is owed shown beside it.
- Record a part payment: the amount received to date, inc GST. The claim stays open and keeps ageing on the balance.
- Void this claim, with a reason.
Press Save. A paid claim is settled and a voided claim is closed; neither moves again. A draft cannot be approved or paid — send it first.
When the claim is a sales invoice in Xero, Xero owns payment: paid, part paid and void are not offered here and come back from Xero on their own. Approval and queries are still recorded in Base.
A claim past its due date with money owed shows how late it is and a red Chase button on its row; the Invoicing tab's headline also offers Chase the oldest. The dialog takes To, Cc and a Message and sends a payment reminder with the figures. Overdue claims sort to the top of Claims & Invoices; filter the list to Overdue to see only those.
An issued claim is frozen. If it overstated the work or the client negotiated a reduction, press the credit-note icon on its row on Claims & Invoices.
- The dialog lists the credit notes already issued on the claim and how much of the work value can still be credited.
- Enter the Amount (ex GST) — the GST and total are shown — and a Reason.
- Press Issue credit note. It is numbered and issued at once. Sending it to Xero, allocated to the claim's sales invoice, follows as an automation; the Xero page's What synced shows it under Credit notes.
Never edit an issued claim to fix it; the client already has the PDF.
On the Invoicing tab the headline is Invoiced · work value ex GST, with what has been billed inc GST and the percentage received beside it. The ladder shows the Contract sum (ex GST) (or the estimate value when none is set), Received (inc GST), Remaining to claim (ex GST) and Outstanding (inc GST). Drafts are not counted until sent, and the line says how many there are.
On Claims & Invoices the Payable column is what the client pays (net of retention, GST inclusive), and the footer totals issued claims only — drafts and voided claims are named but not counted. Search by invoice number or reference, and filter by the job's Xero tracking option or by status.
- Sending a claim freezes it, stamps the issue and due dates and tells your automations. The sales invoice reaches Xero within a day; when you record the client's approval it is pushed at once if it is not there yet.
- Xero reports payment back on the claim: paid, part paid or voided. Payments are pulled every fifteen minutes; with Xero webhooks set up they arrive within a minute.
- The overdue sweep checks sent claims against their due date on your client terms, and with the overdue-claim automation turned on the assistant drafts a chase for you to send. A queried or voided claim is never chased.
- Approved variations append to a locked schedule as their own lines.
- Credit notes follow to Xero allocated to the claim's invoice.
- Two numbers, both right. The Payable column and the client's total are net of retention and GST inclusive; the Invoicing headline, the profit and loss and WIP count the work value, ex GST and before retention.
- A draft cannot be set to Submitted by hand. Sending it, or marking it sent outside Base, is what submits it — that is what stamps the dates the ageing and the chase depend on.
- Locking is deliberate, and so is unlocking. Lock asks you to confirm that the lines become fixed; Unlock asks for a reason and records it in the job's event log. Rebuild from estimate is only offered while the schedule is unlocked and nothing has been claimed.
- A claim that is a Xero invoice cannot be marked paid in Base. Xero says when it is paid. To reduce what is owed, issue a credit note.
- Overdue is a judgement, not a stored status. It is worked out from the due date and what is still owed, so a part payment changes it.
- Money — finished work not yet claimed appears under Watch.
- Xero — the sales invoice each claim becomes, and what synced.
- Reports and cashflow — aged receivables and the claims register.