Invoices

An invoice is a document issued by a business to its customer, detailing the services and/or products sold. It creates an obligation for the buyer to pay. It lists the items sold, their quantities, and the amount payable for each. An invoice typically provides the following details:

• Seller details
• Buyer details
• Items sold, with corresponding quantity and unit price for each item
• Taxes or discounts
• Net amount payable by the buyer

Chargebee automates the entire invoicing process, starting from a new subscription sign-up, invoice creation, and all payments made between the merchant and buyer. Email notifications can also be sent to inform buyers of the transaction status.

The Invoices tab lists all generated invoices, including details such as invoice number, invoice status (Paid, Payment Due, etc.), credits applied, customer details, invoice date, invoice amount, retry attempt, and more.

The Invoices tab allows you to:

• Filter invoices by customer details, invoice status, subscription details, transaction details, and order details
• Customize columns to show the details you want to see
• Sort the invoice list
• Email invoices
• Export invoices as CSV or PDF files
• View the invoice details page

Bulk Actions:

You can also select multiple invoices and perform actions on them.

• Delete: Delete the selected invoices
• Mark as Void: Mark the selected invoices as "Void"
• Close Pending Invoices: Close the pending invoices
• Write off Invoices: Write off the invoices
• Collect Payment for Invoices: Send an email to collect payment for selected invoices. This is applicable only if the invoice is marked as "Not Paid"

Chargebee bills your customers on the same day their subscription becomes active. For example, if a customer signs up on January 10th without a trial period, billing will occur on January 10th, February 10th, March 10th, and so on. If the date is not available, billing will occur on the last day of the month—for example, if the sign-up was on January 31st, the next billing date would be February 28th, and so on.

Invoices follow the time zone of your Chargebee site. If you change the time zone, newly generated invoices will follow the new time zone, while previously generated invoices will retain the old time zone.

For example, if your Chargebee site was set to PST until April and you change the time zone to EST on May 1st, invoices generated until April 30th will be in PST, and invoices generated from May 1st onward will be in EST.

For invoices impacted by a time zone change, a banner with details of the change will be displayed on the Invoice details page.

When you enable multi-decimal support in your Chargebee site, you can specify plan/addon prices and unit values in multiple decimals, based on the number of decimal places you have configured. Your invoices will display the units and price of items in multiple decimal places wherever applicable, on the invoice details page and PDF. You can hover over the ellipsis icon to see the entire value.

Tax computation is also based on the number of decimal places.

Invoice line item amounts are rounded to their currency precision. Learn more about the rounding logic for invoice line item amounts.

Invoice Statuses

Paid – Payment has been made successfully.

Payment Due – Charge has been attempted but failed. Chargebee will continue to retry the charge based on your dunning settings. You can also choose to collect payment immediately by clicking the Collect Now button. An invoice is also marked as Payment Due when payment collection via direct debit is in progress.

Not Paid – Payment has not been received. No further attempts will be made on this invoice. An invoice is also marked as Not Paid if a direct debit transaction fails.

Pending – This status is used for invoices generated for usage-based charges (metered billing).

Voided – The invoice has been canceled. Learn more.

Posted – This status is used when you've enabled Payment Terms (Net D) for your recurring invoices. Recurring invoices are marked as Posted immediately after they are generated. They will remain in this state until the due period has been exceeded. The invoice status will change to Payment Due if the due period has been exceeded and the amount hasn't been paid.

The following diagram explains the Invoice Status Life Cycle:

Hiding Zero-Value Line Items

To hide free-of-charge line items from an invoice, click Settings > Configure Chargebee > Billing LogIQ > Billing & Invoices > Zero value line items and enable the setting.

Rounding-off Invoice Amount

Invoice amounts can be rounded to the nearest whole number. To enable this setting, click Settings > Configure Chargebee > Billing LogIQ > Billing & Invoices > Round-off invoice amount and enable the setting.

Invoices During Direct Debit Payments

Unlike credit card transactions, for Direct Debit payment methods such as ACH and SEPA, there is a delay during transaction completion and processing.

During transactions via payment methods such as ACH, the following steps are initiated:

• When the customer needs to be charged, Chargebee sends a request to the payment initiating entity.
• When the payment is successfully initiated, Chargebee creates a payment transaction with an In Progress status.
• The invoice status will be Payment Due as payment confirmation is still awaited.

When the request is validated and the payment is "settled" by ACH, Chargebee changes the transaction status from In Progress to Success and the invoice will be marked as Paid. Since the process goes through the entire cycle each time, there may be a time delay for ACH/Direct Debit transaction completion. Payment refunds also go through the entire process.

If the payment settlement fails:

• The transaction will be marked as Failed.
• The invoice will then be marked as Not Paid.

Displaying Exchange Rates in Invoices

To stay compliant with European and South African law, when billing is done in a currency other than Euro or South African Rand, you can display the exchange rate on the invoice details page and the invoice PDF. Contact support if you want exchange rates to be displayed on your invoices.