Understanding Retainers

In BillQuick Online, you can have two types of retainers—client retainers and project retainers. BillQuick Online recognizes a retainer and makes it available for application only after you record it in the Payment screen. Whether BillQuick Online classifies the amount that you receive as a client retainer or a project retainer depends on how you record it. BillQuick Online saves overpayments and other unapplied amounts—funds on account—as client retainers.

Retainer Management maintains a complete history of all retainer activity, including retainer invoices, receipts, and application to invoices. Retainer information is also available in-context throughout BillQuick Online, including client records, project records, Billing Review, Manual Invoice, Payments and various reports.

BillQuick Online does not allow retainers for a Main project. It distributes retainer and contract amount to its phases and segments using ‘% of Total Project’ for each (Project-Details screen). You can manually distribute the retainer amount to phases or generate a retainer invoice for them.

Retainer Situations

You might be having clients who pre-bill for all their work or offer pre-paid services. Typically, they use fixed fee contract types involving monthly, quarterly or annual billing. In other words, there are no time or expense entries when they issue invoices.

You can handle this situation in three ways:

• Set up a billing schedule for each contract. You can specify the bill amount and reminder date for the billing to take place, irrespective of the time and expense entries made.
• Set the project as ‘Recurring’ and specify the recurring amount and frequency on the Project-Billing screen. After a project is set as a recurring type, it will show up in the Billing Review irrespective of whether you have recorded any time or expense against the project.
• Send the client a retainer invoice at the beginning of every month and then internally create a regular invoice at the end of the month for the same amount and apply the retainer received. This will result in a zero dollar invoice, which you will not email to the client. However, the time and expense entries will link correctly, giving you the correct realization rates.