The Invoice feature in Xola makes it simple to send a professional invoice directly to your customers, giving them the option to pay securely via credit card. This feature is designed for back-office purchases both at the time of the original purchase and for any purchases with an outstanding balance.
With invoicing, your customers gain access to a self-service payment option, allowing them to pay the remaining balance of a purchase conveniently through the Pay Invoice button included in their confirmation email. This eliminates the need for manual payment collection and creates a smoother, more efficient payment process.
Whether a partial payment or no payment was collected during the original purchase, the outstanding balance can be paid by the customer at any time, as long as Invoicing is enabled. This feature ensures that both you and your customers enjoy greater flexibility, convenience, and clarity when handling payments.
User Access: Admin or Curator roles have access to set up invoicing in Xola.
Admin, Reservationist Lite or Reservationist roles can send and create invoices.
To grant access to users, click here.
What's covered in this article:
- Setting up the Invoice feature
- Creating an Invoice
- Other ways to send an Invoice
- The Customer Experience
Setting up the Invoice Feature
To set up Invoicing, you will first enable it through the App Store by navigating to App Store > Invoicing > Install > Agree to the Terms of Service.
Once Invoicing is on for your account, follow these steps to allow your customers to pay the remaining balance of a purchase from their confirmation and reminder emails:
- Navigate to Products > Experiences. Click Edit on the experiences you wish to enable invoice payments.
- Select the Self-Service sub-tab on the left.
- Toggle on Allow customers to make payment.
- You can also configure a balance due reminder email under Products > Experiences > Click Edit > Pricing sub-tab.
- On this page, you can set the number of days prior to the arrival date that the remaining balance is due, and whether or not you would like an automatic balance reminder email to send on the due date.
Creating an Invoice
- Make a back office purchase as normal through the Make a Purchase button.
- In the Payment section, choose Now or Deposit under Payment Workflow and select Invoice under Payment Method.
- Enter the number of days before this experience that the invoice must be paid.
- Enter an optional message to the customer.
- Click Send Invoice.
The customer can pay the invoice through email (detailed below in the Customer Experience section), or you can click Collect Balance on the Purchase tab to settle through the back office.
Until the customer pays the invoice, they'll remain in the Pending Action Queue and a balance will remain open on their purchase. Xola will not automatically collect the balance.
Tip: Need to resend the invoice? Inside the customer purchase, just hit Collect Balance > Collect Balance via Invoice to send an updated copy of the invoice that includes any changes to the pricing, payment, or reservation.
Other ways to send Invoice
Additional Charges
Once a purchase has been paid for, you may find yourself in a situation where you need to add a charge to the reservation. You now can send an invoice for the additional charge by following these steps:
- Go to the purchase record in the Purchases tab.
- Add a charge using the Modify button shown under the Purchase Summary on the right and select the option for Custom Line Items from the dropdown.
- Add the charge amount and type in the reason for the additional charge.
- Select the Collect Balance Via Invoice option.
- Select the number of days prior to the arrival date that the new balance is due, and type in an optional message to include in the emailed invoice if you'd like.
- Choose a message template or write your own message to the guest (optional).
- Click Send Invoice
This will trigger an email to be sent to the customer informing them of the new balance, with a Pay Now button that will allow them to self-service the payment.
Manually Send Invoices for Balance Due or Partial Amount
Another situation you may encounter if you use deposits for online checkout is wanting to collect the balance due via invoice in case the card on file cannot be charged or you want to provide customers the option to pay on a different card.
- Go to the purchase record in the Purchases tab.
- Click on the Collect Balance button.
- This will bring up a pop-up window to ask if you want to collect the balance now, by invoice, or later.
- Select the invoice as the collection method.
- Select the number of days prior to the arrival date that the new balance is due, and type in an optional message to include in the emailed invoice if you'd like.
- Choose a message template or write your own message to the guest (optional).
- Click Send Invoice
The Customer Experience
- After you send the invoice, the customer will receive an email containing the invoice, the Pay Invoice button, and details regarding the experience.
- The customer will click the green Pay Invoice button.
- A secure checkout window will open up where the customer can pay by credit card.
- Once the customer pays through the checkout window, Xola will automatically update the purchase.
FYI: If the customer has not paid the invoice 24 hours prior to the designated due date, Xola will automatically send the customer a reminder email containing a link to pay.
