Table of Contents
Purpose
If you have an open opportunity, and the Billing Contact changes as the opportunity progresses, like if your customer is moving to another role and someone new will make payments for the properties; there are some changes you’d need to make in Aspire to make sure the invoices go to the correct contact so payment can be completed.
There are a number of places that you can update the Billing Contact for a property, and we will learn where to make those changes in this article.
We will also discuss what is important to pay attention to when this type of change is made in Aspire.
Updating the Billing Contact
To update the Billing Contact, you would complete these actions on the Property level.
⚠️ When making this change, you have the option to also update the Billing Contact on any open opportunities and any invoices not yet generated in the Invoicing Assistant.
⚠️ The billing contact update will not affect Opportunities with a job status of Complete or Canceled.
Editing a billing contact from the property screen is usually done when you need to update the billing contact for one or two properties.
If you have a larger amount of property billing contacts to update for a company, then you might want to look at updating them with Bulk Actions found in the Properties module. Instructions for using Bulk Actions can be found after this section or you can skip to this section here.
For A Property
✅ Permissions Check: The Edit Properties and Edit Contacts, Edit Billing Contact, as well as the Edit Billing permission need to be enabled to update Billing Contacts.
To edit a single property:
Navigate to the Properties module.
Find your property that you want to make the update to.
Scroll to the Contacts section on the property screen and select New.
Choose from to either select Create New Contact, which pushes you to create a new contact that is not yet in Aspire. You could then assign them as the billing contact. Or, choose Add Existing Contact.
Select the Contact name from the drop down and check the box for Billing. Choose any additional check boxes that need to be selected for your new billing contact.
Save.
The Confirm box appears to ask you if you want to update any open opportunities or open invoices. Check the boxes as needed and then click Save.
This will update your billing contact to the new contact you’ve selected and unassign the existing billing contact from the Property record automatically.
For Multiple Properties
If you have more than one property to update to the same billing contact, consider using the Bulk Action feature of Change Billing Contact.
✅ Permissions Check: The Edit Properties and Edit Contacts, Edit Billing Contact, as well as the Edit Billing permission need to be enabled to update Billing Contacts.
⚠️You must have the Contact record of the new billing contact already created to use the Bulk Action feature.
Navigate to the Properties module.
Select the properties that you want to change the billing contact for. Click on the Bulk actions drop down and then, choose Change Billing Contact.
Select contact from the drop down menu and then press Save.
⚠️ Once you press Save, the billing contact is immediately updated.
The Confirmation box appears to ask you if you want to update any open opportunities or open invoices. Check the boxes as needed and then click Save.
Confirming the Change of the Billing Contact
If you want to confirm if the billing contact was applied to the open opportunities that you updated, there are a few ways you can do this.
⚠️ The billing contact update will not affect Opportunities with a job status of Complete or Canceled.
When you change a billing contact on a property, the contact will be updated on opportunities as long as the job status of the opportunity is not Complete or Canceled.
If the job status of the work tickets are Complete or Canceled, the invoices for those opportunities would need to have been paid by the original billing contact, as the change happened after the tickets were no longer active.
From the Opportunity Screen
If you want to confirm that the billing contact has been updated for one opportunity, locate and review the invoice details.
Go to the Opportunities module, search and then select the opportunity that needs to be reviewed.
Click on the Invoice Type icon and review the billing contact listed.
If the information is not correct, you can update the details listed on the Invoicing Info screen and Save.
📌 Note: You can change the billing contact information on the above screen, without affecting what is listed on the property record. It will only apply to the invoices related to this opportunity that are in the Invoicing Assistant or batched but not sent.
From the Opportunities Module
You can also confirm if the billing contact has been updated by using the filter and display features in the Opportunities module. You can add filter requirements to help you confirm the current billing contact for all of your opportunities.
Navigate to Opportunities.
Add the following Display and Filter fields to the Search list for Opportunities:
Display Fields | Billing Contact Full Name |
Filter Fields |
|
Adding these filter options will show a list of contacts that have billing contacts assigned and help you see who the current billing contact is for your opportunities.
Create a saved list if you need to share this information with others on your team or if you need to do this process often!
If the Billing Contact Changes on an Unsent Invoice
If the billing contact changes on a batched invoice that is in Draft status, meaning the invoice has not been sent, then the billing contact will be updated automatically when you change the billing contact at the property level.
For example, we see that the billing contact has changed on the Property, but we want to double check the invoices, because a batch with this invoice was created before the contact was updated. Let's check to see if it needs to be changed!
Click Invoicing on the blue side menu.
Click on Invoice Batches, and then search and click on the batch to find your invoice.
Once you review the invoice batch, click on your invoice.
Clicking into the generated invoice displays your invoice details. The billing contact was automatically updated when the Property details were updated, because this invoice is in a status of Draft.
📌 Note: If you know the invoice number, you could use the Invoices tab instead of the Invoice Batches tab. Select Invoicing ➡️ Invoices ➡️ and search by the invoice number; you'd arrive at the same screen shown below.
Additionally, before you complete the batch and generate the invoice, you still have a chance to update the billing contact for each invoice before you send.
To update one invoice, you would use only the Billing Contact/Company drop down on this screen.
To update the billing contact on this opportunity's invoice plus the Property, you would check the box for Billing Contact Updated After Email Sent.
Complete your batch and finish sending your invoice to your contact.
If the Billing Contact Changes on a Sent Invoice
If you need to update the billing contact on an invoice that has already been generated into a batch, and the batch has been completed with the invoice already sent, you will have to Void and Reset the invoice.
✅ Permissions Check: Void and Reset is displayed if you have the Modify Sent Invoices permission enabled for your account. You will also need Edit Billing Contact and Edit Billing permissions.
This option allows you to reset the invoice as if it had not been Sent, into Draft status. Voiding and Resetting is only available if the status of the invoice is Sent.
Click Invoicing in the blue side menu.
Select Invoices, and search for your invoice that needs to be voided and reset.
Click on the 3 dots, and select Void & Reset.
Confirm to finish sending this invoice back to batch status.
The invoice is then changed back to Draft status.
🧠 If the invoice was the only invoice in its original batch, the batch is reset as if it had not been sent so that you can complete or re-complete the batch when the billing contact has been changed. If there were other invoices in the original batch, the invoice is removed from its original batch, and a new batch is created to contain the invoice.
Change the Billing Contact as needed and generate your edited invoice to send to your updated contact.