I assume what I see when impersonating the client is the same as the client see’s.
If that is so then there is no indication of what invoices have been viewed and which haven’t.
If the client opens their email and doesn’t click the link at that time to action it then it can get lost amongst all the other emails they’ve received. That can cause delays in payment and embarrassment for the client when I point it out to them.
Rather than send an ‘payment overdue’ notice I would like to see in the client area, a feature that shows unread invoices by either an icon or show the text line in bold. Another alternative could be a button to change the view between All and Unread.
I have one client I invoice almost daily and each month I send a statement and tell them of the 1 or 2 invoices they’ve missed. It’s not that they’re a bad client/payer, they’re just overworked.
Adding a “viewed” indicator in the client area on the main list of invoices would be useful I think. I just question how it will solve the problem you mention? If the customer never clicked the link on the invoice to begin with it’s unlikely they will later end up on the client area dashboard to see that they haven’t yet viewed a particular invoice.
All invoice links take the client directly to the invoice preview and the dashboard view in many cases is secondary to that.
That was my first thought, and also they would have to reconcile against the monthly statement for their own records I’d have thought so it would be apparent they had missed an invoice somewhere as the figures wouldn’t add up?
In this instance, it is the person who allocates the work that receives the invoice email and having viewed and checked the invoice then forwards the email with approval noted to accounts (remote worker). Missing and overdue invoices prompted me to start sending statements to accounts. Accounts then emails me back asking for copies to be sent of the missing invoices to be approved.
I was under the impression that a link with login and password to the clients portal was sent to them when it was set up. In any case, primary or secondary, a viewed indicator is probably essential. Imagine trying to keep track of your emails if you didn’t know what had and had not been read.
In this instance the email has been opened but the link not clicked. Email programme says email read but doesn’t tell them if the link has been followed, it’s not its responsibility.
QF tracks what’s been viewed by the client (little green line on the left) so I would have thought it would be relatively easy to set up some sort of indicator on the clients portal…??
Clients not opening their invoices is a regular problem for all of us but for most of us I think that it is almost unknown for a client to ever access their control panel. To confuse matters several of my clients will pay on the basis of the summary in the email and not bother with the invoice at all.
I send monthly statements when there is a balance outstanding.
There are possibilities to cover some of these issues with revisions to the overdue emails. Eg sending a reminder just before the due date.
