Billing stages

Arkata bills in stages. You split the project fee into chunks and invoice each chunk as you finish that part of the work, which is how most firms bill: at milestones rather than all at once. A billing stage is one of those chunks, such as “Pre-submittal”, “Planning submission” or “Post-approval”. Each stage holds line items describing the individual charges.

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Add a billing stage

Partners and Admins only.

1. Open a project and go to the Billing tab.
2. Click Add Billing Stage.
3. Either pick a stage from your service catalogue with Select Stage from Catalogue, which brings its services with it, or start from scratch.
4. Set the Stage Name on Invoice.
5. Add services from Available Services, or type a custom service with its rate and quantity.
6. Save.

Pick the stage from your catalogue wherever you can. That link is what lets the timeline mark the stage ready later, and Arkata shows a short amber note under the stage name while a stage has no link, or if the catalogue stage it used has since been removed. Pick a catalogue stage to put the link back. The stage starts as Not Ready. Click the pencil icon on its row to change it later, or the bin icon to remove it. An invoiced stage cannot be edited or removed, and its catalogue stage is shown for reference only.

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Price the line items

Each line item has a service, a pricing method, a rate and quantity, and a total worked out for you. If a stage uses percentage pricing and the project has no construction costs yet, Arkata asks for them. Pass-through costs, such as a PA application fee, are charges you pass on at cost and carry no VAT. Set these up in your service catalogue. Waiving a line leaves it visible but out of the stage total. Click a stage to expand its lines, then waive any line you have decided not to charge for.

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Mark a stage ready to invoice

Stages are marked Ready to Invoice automatically from the project timeline. In Settings → Billing → Timeline Billing, link each stage from your catalogue to one timeline sub phase per project type. When that sub phase is ticked on a project, its stage becomes Ready to Invoice. Unticking it sets it back to Not Ready, unless the stage has already been invoiced. Sub phases with a robot icon are ticked automatically by email automation (for example Approved Permit when the decision notice arrives), so a stage linked to one can become ready without anyone ticking it. Pick each stage from the catalogue when you add it to a quote or project. A stage typed in by hand is not linked, so it won’t be marked ready automatically. Partners and Admins can also click a stage’s status badge and pick Ready to Invoice by hand. Partners get an inbox notification, and the stage appears under Invoices to Issue on the billing dashboard. From there, create the invoice; several ready stages can go on one.

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Stage statuses

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Next steps