Generate invoices

Invoices are payment requests sent to your members. Omoplata generates them automatically when membership charges are created, so in most cases you do not need to create invoices manually. This guide explains how the billing cycle works and how to manage invoices when needed.

How automatic billing works

Omoplata processes all active memberships daily and generates transactions and invoices automatically.

The daily billing cycle

Each day, Omoplata:

1. Identifies all payers on active memberships.
2. Checks every membership they are responsible for.
3. Determines whether a charge is due based on the membership's billing schedule (defined by the plan's charge frequency).
4. Creates a transaction for each charge due, representing the amount owed.
5. Creates an invoice that bundles the transactions for the payer, with a unique ID, title, total amount, and due date.

Invoice details

Each automatically generated invoice includes:

• A unique prefixed ID (for example, INV-1000042).
• A title built from the titles of all included transactions, joined with a + sign (truncated to 140 characters for SEPA compatibility).
• The net amount, VAT, and gross total.
• A due date calculated from the charge date plus your configured grace period.
• Line items corresponding to each transaction.

Viewing invoices

1. Navigate to Finance > Invoices from the sidebar.
2. The invoice list shows all invoices with their ID, member name, amount, due date, and status.
3. Use the search bar to find invoices by ID, member name, or description.
4. Click on any invoice to view its full details, including line items and status history.

Invoice statistics

At the top of the invoices page, a summary widget shows key figures for the current month:

• Total due -- the total amount of all invoices due this month.
• Paid -- the amount already collected.
• Outstanding -- the amount still waiting for payment.
• Count -- the total number of invoices for the month.

Understanding invoice statuses

Invoices move through a defined lifecycle. The status determines what actions are available.

Changing invoice status manually

1. Navigate to Finance > Invoices and select the invoice.
2. Open the status dropdown, which shows only the valid transitions from the current state.
3. Select the new status.
4. Omoplata automatically updates all related transactions to match:
   • Paid -- transactions become completed, a payment record is created.
   • Pending -- transactions revert to invoiced.
   • Canceled -- transactions are marked as canceled.
   • Overdue -- transactions are marked as overdue.
   • On hold -- transactions stay as invoiced but the invoice is paused.

Marking an invoice as paid manually

For payment methods like cash or bank transfer where Omoplata cannot detect payment automatically:

1. Go to Finance > Invoices and find the invoice.
2. Change the status to Paid.
3. The system creates a payment record and marks related transactions as completed.

If your club uses FinTS bank integration, incoming bank transfers can be matched to invoices automatically. See Bank integration for details.

Zero-amount invoices

If a membership charge results in a zero-amount invoice (for example, during a free trial period), the invoice is automatically marked as paid and its transactions are completed. No action is required from you or the member.

Pro-rated invoices

When a membership starts partway through a billing period, Omoplata generates a pro-rated invoice covering the partial period. For example, if a membership starts on June 3 and the first regular charge is July 1, a pro-rated invoice covers June 3 through June 30.

Backdated memberships

When a membership is created with a start date in the past:

• If the start date is more than one billing period ago, all historical charges are generated immediately so the billing history is complete.
• If the start date is within the current billing period, only a pro-rated charge is created.

This ensures the billing record is accurate regardless of when the membership was actually entered into the system.

Payment attempts and retries

When a SEPA debit fails and the invoice moves to pending retry, the invoice ID is suffixed with a counter:

• First attempt: INV-1000042
• After first failure: INV-1000042-1
• After second failure: INV-1000042-2

This makes it easy to see how many times collection has been attempted for a given invoice.

Downloading invoice PDFs

1. From the invoice list or the member profile, click the download link next to any invoice.
2. A PDF is generated and downloaded, containing all invoice details, line items, and your club's branding.

Members can also download their own invoices from the billing section of the member portal. The portal shows the five most recent transactions, and each one with an associated invoice has a download link.

Invoices and the SEPA workflow

When your club uses SEPA direct debit, invoices follow a specific path:

1. Pending -- invoice is created and waiting for the next SEPA batch.
2. Waiting to send -- a SEPA XML file has been generated that includes this invoice (see Process SEPA direct debits).
3. Sent to bank -- the SEPA file has been uploaded to your bank.
4. Paid -- the bank has processed the debit (or the automatic fallback has confirmed payment).

If a SEPA file is deleted before being uploaded, invoices revert from "waiting to send" back to "pending" and can be included in a future batch.

What to do next

• Process SEPA direct debits -- learn how to collect pending invoices via SEPA.
• Handle failed payments -- manage invoices where collection has failed.
• Manage memberships -- understand how membership changes affect billing.

For the full reference on invoice statuses and behavior, see Invoices.