Invoices

Prior to creating an invoice, confirm with the client whether they would like to pay in CAD, USD, EUR, or GBP, and in what country their financial institution is based, then proceed with the following steps.

Creating an invoice for a client

1. Go to Quickbooks Online, open the Invoicing > Customers tab.

2. If the client is not in the customer list, click New customer to create a new profile for the client.

3. Click Create invoice on the client you wish to invoice, and use the following settings:

   • Cc.: finance@hypha.coop
   • Terms: Net 15 (may vary by project)
   • Message on invoice: [Payment instructions] (e.g. Please pay USD 3,135.00)
   • Attachments: [Timesheet PDFs]

4. At the bottom of the page, click Customize to select a style, or create a new style template as needed.

5. If creating a new style template or the payment information needs to be changed, select the Content tab, click on the bottom section of the template preview to reveal the Add payment details and footer section, then enter the applicable payment information.

   For example:

    PAYMENT
   
    By ACH or domestic wire transfer to:
   
    ACH Transfer No. (ABA): 026073150
    Wire Transfer No. (ABA): 026073008
    Account No.: [REDACTED]
    Beneficiary Name: Hypha Worker Co-operative Inc.
    Beneficiary Address:
   
        TransferWise
        19 W 24th Street
        New York
        10010
        United States
   
    Invoice amount will be adjusted to reflect actual exchange rate after payment.
   

   This is an invoice for a client based in the United States, payable in USD to our TransferWise account. Look at a previous invoice for examples.

   Review the invoice preview, then click Done.

6. Fill in the line items and calculate totals. See example below.

   All invoices are in CAD, even if the customer is paying in a foreign currency. This means RATE and AMOUNT columns are in CAD, and if the contract is an hourly rate based on a foreign currency, you can include the information in the DESCRIPTION column, and use an estimated CAD equivalent in the RATE column and to calculate the AMOUNT.

7. In the SALES TAX column, select one of HST ON, zero-rated, exempt, or out of scope for each line item. See example below.

8. Review the invoice preview, then click Save and send to email the invoice to the client.

Settling an invoice payment

Once the client has paid the invoice, we must check the amount received at our receiving account at Desjardins (domestic) or TransferWise (foreign currency), and record the transaction in Quickbooks Online.

Domestic

1. After the money arrives to Desjardins, we need to update our records in Quickbooks Online:

   1. In the Banking tab, select our Chequing account and click Update to sync our Desjardins account.

   2. Find the transaction from the client and click on it, then select Find match to select the incoming transaction to match.

   3. If there is a discrepancy in the amounts, click the Resolve button and change CATEGORY to Bank charges, and GST/HST to Exempt (0%) since bank charges are exempt items, then click Save.

2. Archive the PDF of the paid and finalized invoice in our shared drive under the Invoices directory with filename xxxx-project.pdf, where xxxx is the invoice number (e.g. 1001-aether.pdf).

Foreign Currency

1. Confirm the correct amount is received, then convert the foreign currency to CAD. We can either move the money to the CAD balance in TransferWise, or if the amount is large, we can directly deposit the exchanged amount into our Desjardins account. The following example shows how to do that in a single transaction from TransferWise:

   1. Confirm that the invoice amount of 3,757.50 USD is received to our USD balance, then click Send USD.

      

      

   2. Choose My business and enter in our Desjardins account information for the deposit.

      

      

   3. Note the invoice number in the Reference field, then click Confirm and send.

      

      In this example, a client in the United States sent 3,757.50 USD to the Hypha USD account at TransferWise, and we deposited 4,904.11 CAD at the Hypha CAD account at Desjardins. The transaction and exchange fee was 20.61 USD, and the exchange rate was 1.31235.

      If invoice amounts are small, we may batch many of them in TransferWise before depositing to Desjardins, but we should still convert foreign currencies to CAD as soon as possible and hold the amount as CAD in our TransferWise CAD balance.

   4. In the USD balance, click on Download a statement and download a CSV file for the date range that includes the transaction(s). Open the file and multiply the amounts with the exchange rate column, then save.

2. After the money arrives to Desjardins, we need to update our records in Quickbooks Online:

   1. Click on the invoice and add a line item that accommodates for the discrepancy in estimated and actual exchange rates.

      In our example where we deposited 4,904.11 CAD to Desjardins, if our invoice estimated a CAD AMOUNT of 4,950.00 CAD, we would record an Exchange rate adjustment @ 1.31235 line item with -45.89 as AMOUNT. Make sure you take the exchange rate from the TransferWise CSV.

   2. In the Banking tab, select our Chequing account and click Update to sync our Desjardins account. Find the transaction from TransferWise and click on it, and change the Category to TransferWise, change Tax code to Out of Scope (Sales) since this is an internal transfer, then click Add.

   3. In the Banking tab, select our TransferWise account to click File upload (down arrow next to Update) to update our TransferWise account. Browse and upload the TransferWise CSV we saved earlier, select TransferWise as the account, then click Next and enter the following:

      • Date: Column 2
      • Description: Column 5
      • Amount: Column 3

      Click Next twice, and then Yes to import.

   4. Find the transaction from the client and click on it, then select Find match to select the incoming transaction to match. There should be no discrepancy in the amounts.

   5. Find the transaction from our TransferWise account to Desjardins account, then select Find match. We expect a discrepancy in the amounts. Click the Resolve button and change CATEGORY to Bank charges, then click Save.

   6. If there is a discrepancy, click the Resolve button and change CATEGORY to Bank charges, and GST/HST to Exempt (0%) since bank charges are exempt items, then click Save.

3. Archive the PDF of the paid and finalized invoice in our shared drive under the Invoices directory with filename xxxx-project.pdf, where xxxx is the invoice number (e.g. 1001-aether.pdf).