Invoicing for More Than One Business
If your dealership trades under more than one name — a car lot and a towing branch, say — you can add each name as a business. Each one can give its invoices and estimates their own numbers, terms, tax rate, design, logo and saved items, or simply follow your dealership’s. It is still one dealership in My Dealer Jacket, with one set of customers and one Payment Tracker; if you work for two separate dealerships, that is a different thing, covered in Working at More Than One Dealership.
Businesses are added and set up under Invoices → Settings, which shows for people who can change invoice settings. Invoicing a Customer covers invoices themselves.
Adding a business
Section titled “Adding a business”In Invoices → Settings, click Add a business in the Settings for row at the top. Give it its Legal name and, if it trades under another, a Trading name (optional). Its own settings page opens next. You can also add one from the From block on an invoice.
Settings for is how you move between the pages: your dealership first, then each business. Whichever new invoices start from carries a Default tag.
One business set as the default counts as just you: your invoices go out as that business, and nothing about businesses shows anywhere else — no Business column or filter, no pills, no tags, no Which business step. All of that appears once there is a second: another business, or your dealership kept as the default beside one.
What a business’s page holds
Section titled “What a business’s page holds”Business details are what its invoices print at the top: its name, trading name, address, phone, email and tax ID, and a Logo — “Printed on this business’s invoices. PNG or JPEG, under 2 MB.” Without one, its invoices use your dealership’s logo. Invoices already finalized keep what they printed.
Then four sections, and each one asks the same question: Same as your dealership, or Its own?
- Invoice and estimate numbers — Same as shares one number sequence with your dealership. Its own gives the business its own starting letters and counter, for invoices and for estimates. It needs different letters for each (“A business with its own numbering needs its own starting letters for invoices and for estimates.”), and the page refuses letters that would print the same numbers as another of your sequences.
- Defaults for new invoices — days to pay, how long estimates are valid, tax rate, payment terms and the footer note.
- Getting paid — what this business’s invoice links offer.
- Design — which design its invoices print with.
A new business starts on Same as in every section, so nothing changes until you choose Its own. While a section is on Same as, it shows your dealership’s settings, so you can see what applies.
Below those are the business’s own Saved items — the ones offered on its invoices — and its Invoice templates. Both are explained in Invoicing a Customer.
Sunshine Towing
What this business's invoices start with. Each section can follow your dealership or be this business's own.
Invoice and estimate numbers
Numbers are given when you finalize, never on a draft.
Next invoice: INV-0042 · Next estimate: EST-0007
At the top of a business’s page, Use by default makes new invoices start from that business. Remove asks “Remove this business?” first: the business is no longer offered on new invoices, and invoices already finalized keep the details they were sent with. Save and Cancel are at the bottom of the page, and leaving with changes you have not saved asks you first.
What the From on an invoice decides
Section titled “What the From on an invoice decides”From, at the top of an invoice or an estimate, is the business that bills it. It decides:
- its number — the business’s own sequence, or your dealership’s if it shares it;
- what a new draft starts with — days to pay (or how long an estimate is valid), tax rate, payment terms and footer note, and what its link offers;
- how it looks — the design, the logo and the business details at the top;
- which saved items are offered as you add lines;
- the name your customer sees — in the email, the text message, the page they open, the PDF and the description of a card payment. When the business has its own email, their replies go to it.
Switching From on a draft swaps any of those starting values you have not changed — the terms, the due date (or valid-until) and the tax rate — for the new business’s, and keeps what you typed.
On an invoice already finalized you can switch to a business that shares its numbering. A business that numbers separately is refused, because the invoice’s number belongs to the other business’s sequence. Void the invoice and duplicate it under the other business instead.
Payment links collect for one business
Section titled “Payment links collect for one business”A combined payment link is one business’s invoices. On a customer’s billing profile, each invoice from one of your businesses carries a small tag with its name; your dealership’s own invoices have none. Tick invoices from two businesses and the bar says “These are from different businesses. A payment link collects for one business, so send each business’s invoices on its own link.” Recording one payment across them is still fine.
A payment link for an amount — Take payment → Send a payment link with no invoice ticked — or a card-reader charge asks Which business it is from, starting on the one new invoices start from. The payment page, the email or text carrying the link, the card charge and the customer’s receipt all name that business; with no businesses, nothing is asked and everything names your dealership, as before. A customer paying an invoice online gets a receipt from the business that sent the invoice. See Taking Payment From a Customer.
Seeing one business at a time
Section titled “Seeing one business at a time”On the Overview, pills above the figures — All businesses, your dealership, then each business — narrow every figure and list on the page, and the open estimates, to the one you pick. The figures still open the invoice list narrowed the same way, except Collected, last 30 days, which is not a link while one business is picked: the Payment Tracker cannot narrow to a business.
The Invoices and Estimates tabs each gain a Business filter and a Business column. None of this appears until you invoice as more than one business (see Adding a business).
After you finish
Section titled “After you finish”- Numbering, defaults, getting paid and design are explained in full under Settings in Invoicing a Customer — the same fields, on each business’s page.
- Sending an Estimate covers quotes, which take their numbering and how long they are valid from the business too.