Retainers

Overview

Note: Help content (except videos) has been updated to reflect the UI/UX changes in BQE CORE.

Retainers are advance payments that you can request from your clients. They are pre-payments that are usually requested before work begins and then used against future billings or for the final invoice payments. However, retainers do not have to be necessarily requested in order to be received. Similarly, retainers received are not directly connected to retainers requested.

As retainers represent advance money received but not yet earned, they are considered a liability in accounting, even though you deposit this fund in the client's account. BQE CORE recognizes a retainer and makes it available for application only after you record it in the Payments screen. When it is applied to an invoice, only then is it recognized as an income. Typically, you apply a retainer toward the end of a project on the final invoice. However, depending upon your accounting practice, your company can regard it as an income when received. Also, if retainers are non-refundable, they are recognized as income when the client pays them. Unlike standard invoices, a retainer payment does not apply to a specific invoice; it just debits the retainer account. Click to watch this video on managing retainer in CORE.

Retainers are commonly used in the legal industry where law firms deposit retainer payments into trust fund accounts and are required to manage each client’s retainer payment separately. It is also common in the construction industry. Attorneys are the fiduciary of the IOLTA bank account, which is a trust fund account used to deposit the retainer payments, settlement monies, money for case costs, future services and expenses, etc. by the clients. Most of the industries, especially architectural and engineering, consider retainer as a security deposit and use it at the end of a contract. You might be having clients who pre-bill for all their work or offer pre-paid services. Typically, they use fixed fee contract types involving monthly, quarterly or annual billing. In other words, there are no time or expense entries when they issue invoices. You can handle this situation by sending the clients a retainer invoice at the beginning of every month. Then internally create a regular invoice at the end of the month for the same amount and apply the retainer received. This results in a zero dollar invoice, which you do not email to the clients. However, the time and expense entries link correctly, giving you the correct realization rates and accurate write-up/write-down values. Clients can pay the retainers electronically using the online payment option (ePayments).

Retainers are of two types:

• Client Retainers

  Client retainer is an advance payment received from a client and is available for all the projects of that client. Whether CORE classifies the amount received as a client retainer or a project retainer depends on how you record it. When applying retainers to the invoices, project retainers are to be used first and then client retainers.

• Project Retainers

  Project retainer is an advance payment received from a client for a particular project and can be applied on that project only. Whether CORE classifies the amount received as a client retainer or a project retainer depends on how you record it. When applying retainers to the invoices, project retainers are to be used first and then client retainers.

You can memorize retainer invoices and schedule them for automatic processing on a user-defined frequency. CORE allows you to set a minimum retainer amount for projects and then tracks it for you for automatic retainer invoices. It lets you to transfer retainers between projects of the same client as well as different clients.

Field Descriptions

How To

Request Retainers

Apply Retainers on Invoices

Memorize Retainer Invoices

Email Retainer Invoices

Preview Retainers

Download Retainers

Specify Online Payments

Show/Hide Columns in Grid

Transfer Retainers

Refund Retainers

Mark Screen as Favorite

Field Descriptions

Request Retainers

You can request a retainer from your clients for all their projects (client retainer) or any specific project (project retainer). You can create retainer invoices for the parent projects and later apply the retainers to the phases. The retainer invoice is stored as reference information for the project; it does not record any retainer payment. You can also create trust fund invoices here for projects that have trust fund accounts assigned at the project level.

To request a retainer from a client, watch this video or follow these steps:

1. Open the Retainers screen from the side menu > Billing > Transactions.
   
   
   
   
2. Select a Client or Project from the respective drop-downs, depending on whether you want to request a client or a project retainer. Then click Request Retainer.
3. On the Request Retainer dialog, enter the required information. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
   • Date
   • For: Client or Project
   • Reference Number
   • Is Trust Fund: You can check this option if you want to request a trust fund payment from the client.
   • Amount
4. You can turn on the ePayments option by checking: Allow online payments for this invoice. Then select the Online Payment Account that you want to associate with the retainer invoice. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
5. You can change the client address by clicking Edit Address and entering the new address.
6. Click Process or Process & Preview.

Note: In case of client retainers, the memo entered here is passed on to the retainer invoice as ePayments memo, when enabled.

A retainer invoice (or trust fund invoice) is created for the client. You can view its details in the detail view.

Apply Retainers on Invoices

From the accounting perspective, when retainers are applied on invoices, such transactions debit the unearned retainer account and credit the A/R account. After sending retainer invoices to clients and receiving the retainer payments, you can apply them to invoices in several ways.

Click to watch this video or read the following information:

• Apply retainers on billing records and manual invoices in the Invoices screen. Check Apply Retainers on Invoices for details.
• Apply retainers on billing records in the Billing Schedule screen. Check Add Retainers to Invoices for details.
• Apply retainers on outstanding invoices (A/R) in the Payments screen. Check Apply Retainer Payments for details.

Memorize Retainer Invoices

You can select an existing retainer invoice (or trust fund invoice) and then memorize it for future processing. You can memorize retainer invoices from this screen as well as the Recurring Invoices screen.

To memorize a retainer invoice, watch this video or follow these steps:

1. Open the Retainers screen from the side menu > Billing > Transactions.
   
   
   
   
2. Select a retainer invoice on the grid that you want to memorize and click  to select Memorize.
3. On the Add Recurring Invoice screen, make sure to select the Billing Type as Memorized Retainer Invoice.
4. Enter the required information and click Save. Check Recurring Invoices for details.

In the same way, you can select and memorize a trust fund invoice.

Email Retainer Invoices

If the ePayments option is enabled, clients can pay the retainer invoices electronically using the online payment option on the retainer invoice PDFs as well as in the body of the emails.

To email a retainer invoice, watch this video or follow these steps:

1. Open the Retainers screen from the side menu > Billing > Transactions.
   
   
   
   
2. Select a retainer invoice on the grid that you want to email and click  to select Email.
3. On the Compose Email screen, enter the required information. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
   • To
   • Subject
   • Message
     
     
     
     
4. Click Add Attachments at the bottom if you want to attach any files to the retainer email. You can also drag-and-drop any file into the Compose Email window from your desktop or email program.
5. Click Send Message.

If the email is sent to an address that is no longer working, there is a bounce-back email sent to let you know about this. You can also check the detailed video on emailing in CORE.

Note: You cannot remove the default or system attachments. Only user-defined attachments can be added or removed. CORE restricts the file size of the attachments to 10 MB and sends the attachments as a single zipped file.

Preview Retainers

To preview a retainer invoice or view its details:

1. Open the Retainers screen from the side menu > Billing > Transactions.
   
   
   
   
2. Select a retainer invoice on the grid that you want to view and click Preview or  to select View Details.
3. On the Details tab, view the retainer information.
   
   
   
   
4. Click the Preview tab to view the retainer invoice.

Download Retainers

You can download the details of the retainers as a PDF file directly from the list view.

To download a retainer invoice:

1. Open the Retainers screen from the side menu > Billing > Transactions.
   
   
   
   
2. In the list view, select the retainer on the grid whose details you want to download and click  to select Download PDF.
3. It prompts you to save the PDF at the relevant location, say your Desktop. Click Save.

Specify Online Payments

CORE allows your clients to pay their retainer invoices electronically using the ePayments method from anywhere in the world. You get to choose whether to enable ePayments at the global level for all clients (Settings) or selectively enable that at the client, project and invoice level. Check out ePayments for details.

Retainer invoices do not have a due date and cannot be scheduled for later payments; so CORE allows only the Pay Now option on them.

To specify or change the online payment account for a retainer invoice:

1. Open the Retainers screen from the side menu > Billing > Transactions.
   
   
   
   
2. In the list view, select the retainer invoices on the grid whose payment option you want to change.
3. Click Actions > Online Payments.
4. On the Change Online Payment Account dialog, select the Account that you want to associate with the selected retainer invoices for the online payment. You can also remove any account by selecting None from the drop-down. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
5. Click Update.
6. Alternatively, select a retainer invoice on the grid for which you want to enable ePayments and click  to select View Details.
7. In the detail view, check the ePayments option: Allow online payments for this invoice. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
   
   
   
   
8. Next, select the Online Payment Account from the drop-down and click Update.

Note: If you remove the online payment profile in Settings > ePayments after retainer invoices are available for ePayments, the Online Payment Account gets reset to 'None' in the Invoices list.

When enabled, the ePayments option appears as a Pay Now/Pay Invoice button on the retainer invoice PDFs as well as in the body of the emails sent to the clients. They can click on the Pay button and be directed to the ePayments portal where they can enter their credit card, debit card or bank account details, and apply a partial or full payment to the retainer invoices (depending on your ePayments settings). ACH transfer can be done using manual entry of bank account details or automatic entry via Plaid. The payment history on the ePayments portal shows a list of previous partial payments received against the retainer invoice. Check out ePayments for details. 

Show/Hide Columns in Grid 

You can configure the fields or columns that appear on the grid in the list view. You can hide or show columns, and sort the order of columns according to your requirements.

To do so, watch this video or follow these steps:

1. Open the Retainers screen from the side menu > Billing > Transactions.
   
   
   
   
2. In the list view, click More > Show/Hide Columns on the action bar.
3. Select or un-select the column names in the drop-down list, say Reference.
4. Next, click the column name you want to sort the data by, say Requested amount.
5. Click once for ascending order (A-Z) and twice for descending order (Z-A).

Note: You can resize the column widths on the grid and then reset them, if needed (More > Reset Column Widths).

You can also check the detailed video on navigation and customizing grids in CORE.

Transfer Retainers

Typically, billing managers need the ability to transfer retainers between projects of the same or different clients, and also between projects and their clients. In case of clients, you can transfer retainers to any of their projects; in case of projects, you can transfer retainers to the related client and all other projects of the same client as well as different clients. These transactions involving transfer of money from one retainer account to another, affect the liability accounts at the project level. On transferring a portion of the available retainer, CORE handles the process such that you are able to delete either of the retainers (original and transferred). All the related adjustment entries are automatically handled in the background and show up on retainer reports.

To transfer a retainer, watch this video or follow these steps:

1. Open the Retainers screen from the side menu > Billing > Transactions.
   
   
   
   
2. Select the relevant Client and/or Project from the respective drop-downs. You can see their retainer details on the grid, such as retainer requested, received and used.
3. From the More menu, select Transfer Retainer.
4. On the Transfer Retainer dialog, enter the required information. Check Field Descriptions above for details.
   • Transfer To: client and/or project
   • Amount
5. Click Transfer. The retainer amount is transferred and displays on the grid.

Refund Retainers

You can refund a client retainer from the Credit Memos screen (side menu > Billing). Check Credit Memos for details or watch this video.

Mark Screen as Favorite

You can mark or flag the most-often used and important screens in CORE as your favorites up to a maximum of ten. These favorite screens then display separately on the side menu under the Favorites list. You can manage all your favorite screens in CORE from User Settings.

To mark this screen as your favorite, watch this video or follow these steps:

1. Open the Retainers screen from the side menu > Billing > Transactions.
   
   
   
   
2. In the list view, click  on the top-right.
3. You can access this screen from the side menu under Favorites.

You can also check the detailed video on marking screens as favorite in CORE.