Note this help article relates to all supplier invoices except for VRBO & Booking.com. Please refer here for the rules about loading bills for those suppliers.


As part of the trust accounting process, we need to periodically load property-related bills (maintenance, cleaning etc) against each property inside OTA+. This then allows the property manager and owner to see all income and expenses related to each property and allows us to perform the functionality of trust accounting each month. 


KEY NOTES: 

  • All trust account related bills get sent by clients (or automatically forwarded by the managed service team) to the accounts@therentalfox.com inbox.
  • Work through ONE CLIENT AT A TIME and ONE BILL AT A TIME when you process bills. The accounts inbox uses filters so you can easily distinguish what email/invoice is for each client. Click on the appropriate label on the left hand side of the inbox if you want to see all the invoices assigned to that client in one place (newest at the top).

Step One - Transferring the bill into the Google Drive


First things first, open up the inbox and select the email/invoice you want to load, making note of the property and any special instructions. Download the attachment and then upload it into the appropriate folder on the Felix shared Google Drive:


OTA+ Bookkeeping > YY-MM > CLIENT > FILES TO UPLOAD > PROPERTY

Note: If the appropriate folder doesn't yet exist - i.e. beginning of a new month etc - please create and structure same as previous.


If there are special instructions (ignore this step if there are no special instructions), open the saved PDF file, edit, attach a comment (sticky note), copying and pasting the instructions. Save that edited PDF to a FILES TO VIEW folder for that month for that client with the PROPERTY NAME in CAPITALS at the beginning of the file name. I.e.:


OTA+ Bookkeeping > YY-MM > CLIENT > FILES TO VIEW > PROPERTY-INVOICENUMBER.PDF


There may be multiple attachments that need to be saved for one bill. This will be the case when a client has incurred an expense and is sending through their own invoice to be reimbursed for that expense. They will usually also attach the original receipt as well as their own invoice. You’ll need to load their bill but also upload scans of any additional receipts or invoices. Make sure you save all attachments, but ensure you keep the main invoice open for data entry.


Sometimes we also receive a single email from a client which has a batch of invoices on them which all need to be loaded separately. This usually happens from Monique for Coffs Coast. There should be a BAT heading in the email to advise you of this and Monique will usually mention if it’s a batch. Make sure you repeat this entire process for each of the invoices on the batch file one at a time.


Step Two - Loading into OTA+


1. Login to the client's OTA+ account & Go to Suppliers > Unpaid Bills, and click '+ New Bill'



2. Enter the supplier's name into the supplier section. If the supplier doesn't exist you will need to create a new supplier. Sometimes individuals don't auto-populate, so select the green truck button and you'll be able to find the individual in the search function, then click the 'Select Supplier' button:




3. Now select the property the bill relates to, by searching and selecting it in the field in the top right corner of the screen:




4. Now select the bill date, due date (the due date will be the same as the bill date if there are no terms or due date specified) and enter the invoice number. Then press TAB - this will load the bill description for the owner ledger.


5. Next, click on the green ‘Add Line Item’ button and load the item detail in the description section. You cannot extend past the length of the box, otherwise it will cause an error, so you will need to summarise any long descriptions. Then press TAB until you get to the ‘Unit Price’ column and enter the value of the charge without GST. Then add the 10% (Australia) or 15% (New Zealand) GST rate and press ENTER. If no GST is applicable, then just leave the % as 0. Sometimes invoices show amounts including GST, sometimes excluding. You’ll need to pay attention to the amounts and the total.


Make sure the total matches the total on the invoice. If there is a rounding error and the total is out by 1 cent, you can try reducing the Unit Price by 1 cent to see if it fixes the problem. If it can’t match exactly, leave it down by 1 cent and then add a new line item called ‘Rounding error’ worth $0.01 with no tax to get the right total figure.


There may be multiple line items on the invoice, so you can keep adding new line items in order to load all of these. Please note, once you reach 5 line items, any subsequent line items will go onto a next page which you can access via the 1, 2 numbers just above the line item section.


Once all the line items are on the bill and the total matches the total on the bill, press Save.


6. Now click on the 'Bill Images' tab.



Click on the ‘Toggle Bill Drop Zone’ icon, which looks like a green in tray with an arrow in a box. 


This will open up the bill loading section. Click in the window and upload the saved file from Google Drive. Once it’s in the window, click on the green ‘Upload Bill File’ button.


If there are numerous attachments sent by the client, you will need to repeat this process until all invoice are saved, but make sure you load the scan of the actual invoice you are loading first.


Once you have loaded the final file, and while it’s saving, you can click on the ‘Toggle Bill Drop Zone’ icon again to close the window. Make sure all scans have uploaded. Sometimes, if the file name is too long, or the file size is too large, it won’t upload. In that instance you will need to rename or resize the file and upload again. 


7. Once all attachments are showing, return to the Bill Details tab, click on the green Action button in the bottom right corner and then click on ‘Submit for Approval’. The bill will save and you can then repeat the process for the next bill for that client.