Titled as a tax invoice
Each document says it is a tax invoice, with your name and GST number, the client's name and, for a client in New Zealand, their GST number too.
GST invoicing
Tax invoices drawn from approved timesheets
ReliTime raises tax invoices from the hours that were approved and locked, priced at the rates in force when they were worked. GST is worked out for each client from where the client is, and an issued invoice is only ever corrected by a further document, never by an edit.
The right GST for each client
- GST at 15% for a client in New Zealand, worked out on every line and shown as a total below them.
- An invoice to a client outside New Zealand is zero-rated, and says so on its face: services supplied to a non-resident who is outside New Zealand, under section 11A of the GST Act 1985.
- A client's country is always asked for, never assumed, so an overseas client is not charged GST by accident.
- Your GST number (your IRD number) is checked by its check digit before an invoice is issued, and a client's when it is entered.
What every tax invoice carries
One series per financial year
Numbers are given out when an invoice is issued, never when a draft is made, so an abandoned draft leaves no gap. The series starts again in April.
Fixed once issued
An issued invoice is drawn the same way every time it is opened: what it says was fixed when it was issued, and a later change to your settings does not reach it.
Disbursements shown apart
A cost paid on a client's behalf and recovered at what it cost is listed under its own heading as a disbursement paid as agent, with no GST on it. A cost recharged with a markup is your own supply and is taxed like the work.
Buyer details over NZ$1,000
An invoice over NZ$1,000 to a New Zealand client is not issued until the client has a billing address or a billing email on file, so the buyer’s details are there when the rules ask for them.
Corrections, payments and what is owed
Credit notes
When an invoice charged too much, a credit note gives it back, numbered in its own series (CN). It cannot give back more than the invoice charged.
Debit notes
When an invoice charged too little, a debit note adds the difference, numbered in its own series (DN). The original invoice is never edited.
Nothing billed twice
Invoices are drawn only from locked weeks, and an hour claimed by one invoice cannot be claimed by another. The database refuses it, not only the screen.
Ready to invoice
A panel lists each client with approved work waiting to be billed and the amount the invoice would come to, worked out the same way the invoice will be. A weekly email says the same.
Sent to the client's billing address
An invoice is emailed as a PDF to the billing address on the client's record, and the invoice shows when it was last sent, so you can see which ones have gone out.
Payments and ageing
Payments are recorded against invoices, a reversal is a new entry rather than an edit, and the ledger shows what is outstanding by how overdue it is.
What it does not do yet
ReliTime does not send invoices as e-invoices over Peppol, does not run payroll, and does not file a GST return: it produces the invoices and the figures, and your accounting system does the rest. If any of that matters to you, tell us in the walkthrough.
See it on your own kind of work
We set ReliTime up with a walkthrough rather than a sign-up form. We will take you through a working organisation, from a week of timesheets through approvals and work in progress to a tax invoice, answer your questions as we go, and set up yours.
Or write to hello@relitime.com.