No invoice has been raised

A pupil is in a lesson, or a parent has booked and paid, and nothing has been billed. There are five reasons, and four of them are settings rather than faults.

Step 1 of 6

Check it is really missing

Open the payer, go to the Debtor tab and then Invoices. It lists everything with a running total of what is outstanding, so this is the place to settle the question before chasing anything. Untick Outstanding only if you want the paid ones as well.

Each invoice shows its year and its type - yearly, termly, event - which is often the quickest clue to what raised it.

Use the arrow keys to move between steps.

1. Check it is really missing

   Open the payer, go to the Debtor tab and then Invoices. It lists everything with a running total of what is outstanding, so this is the place to settle the question before chasing anything. Untick Outstanding only if you want the paid ones as well.

   Each invoice shows its year and its type - yearly, termly, event - which is often the quickest clue to what raised it.

2. Give it until tomorrow

   A place booked online is invoiced by the overnight run rather than at the moment of booking. So a parent who signed up this morning will not have an invoice this afternoon, and nothing is wrong.

   The commonest answer of the five. Worth knowing before you go looking for a cause.

3. Check the service type's Invoice From date

   Every service type has an Invoice From date, and anything starting before it is left out of the invoice run altogether. Early applications taken before the year properly opened are the usual casualties - they sit there looking perfectly healthy with no invoice behind them.

   You will find it under Settings, Service Types, in the Finance Area. Move the date back and the next run picks them up.

4. Something already invoiced is never invoiced again

   Once an activity has been billed it is marked as invoiced, and that mark stays even if you then credit the invoice away to nothing. Change the lesson, add a discount, recalculate - it will not produce a second invoice for a term it has already billed.

   So to charge afresh for the same term you either remove the credit or post a debit. Create Invoice offering only the NEXT term is the giveaway that this is what has happened.

5. School billing needs a released SLA

   Nothing is invoiced to a school while its SLA is still pending. Review and release them in Business Management, and if your configuration says SLAs must be signed, they need signing as well before anything is raised.

   If an entire school has no invoices while everyone else does, look here first rather than at the pupils.

6. And one that catches people the other way

   Withdrawing somebody does not stop an invoice. A pupil who had a week of lessons is billed for that week, which is usually right. If they genuinely should not be charged, put a zero activity rate on the record - they still get an invoice, for nothing.

   Someone still on the waiting list who never became active is different: cancel the application and no charge ever arises.

Why this one is worth knowing

Five causes, and only one of them is anything going wrong.

Booked today — the overnight run has not happened yet.

Invoice From — the service type is excluding anything that started earlier.

Already invoiced once — the mark survives the credit, so nothing re-bills.

A pending SLA — school billing waits for release, and sometimes signature.

Withdrawn but still billed — which is the system doing as it was told, not a fault. A zero rate is the answer, not a deletion.

The same ground, as reference

• Debtors — the payer's invoices, ledger and balance
• Giving a payer their money back — crediting, refunding and writing off
• Finishing and withdrawing — and what it does to the charge