Invoicing before supplying a service

Accounting
1

I’m in the events industry and 9/10 I ask for payment in full before the service actually takes place.

My current system is to create invoices (normally in advance) with the issue date being the date on which the service is provided which works fine with me and I’m quite happy working this way and I can very clearly audit my invoices against my diary by ordering the column by issue date. This also means the P&L is accurate.

Sometimes I work with companies who want the issue date to be when I’m asking for the payment (maybe 6 months beforehand for example) which throws it off balance. Is there a proper way to get around this?

Example:

DJ Service to be provided on 31/12/2017.
Deposit due now.
Balance due 20/12/2017.

My client wants the invoice for the deposit before they pay it out and they want it to say it was issued today. If I do this across the board I’d be paying tax a year early on work due to be done in in 16 months which seems a little silly.

My only thought is to send them an invoice with the issue date they want, then switch it back?

2

Generally at year end its part of accounts preparation task to work out any deferred income and accrued income to get P&L right for tax purpose

Deferred income (also known as deferred revenue, unearned revenue, or unearned income) is, in accrual accounting, money received for goods or services which have not yet been delivered.

Dr Sales
Cr Deferred income ( balance sheet ) item

Similarly

Accrued income is an amount that has been 1) earned, 2) there is a right to receive the amount, and 3) it has not yet been recorded in the general ledger accounts.

Entry is
Dr Accrued income (balance sheet item)
Cr Sale or income

So if you note down the invoices numbers in question, it can be sorted at year end.
You can also create custom project tags in QF to avoiding noting all these sort of invoices, may call them say 2016 YE adjustment or some thing that can be seen in project reporting

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