Overview
If your firm only pays subconsultants after the client has paid you (often called pay when paid), the page that tracks this is BILLING > Expense Budgets. It shows, for each subconsultant budget on each project, how much the vendors have submitted, how much you've invoiced the client, how much the client has paid, how much you've already paid the vendors, and which vendor invoices you can afford to pay based on what the client has paid.
Setting Up Pay When Paid Tracking
The Expense Budgets page builds its numbers from three things you set up elsewhere:
What you need:
A subconsultant expense type. In SETTINGS > Lists > Expense Types, set the expense type's Type to Subconsultant. The page's subconsultant filter uses this setting.
An expense budget on the project. On the project's Budget tab, add an expense budget for the subconsultant with the Estimated Pay to Vendor(s) (excl. tax) and any markup. If you invoice the subconsultant as part of a fixed fee, check Included in Services Fee? and select the phases the budget is included in. Factor then counts the fixed fee you bill in those phases as invoiced against the expense budget, even though no individual expense is billed.
The vendor's invoices entered as expenses. The page's submitted amounts come from the expenses you enter. Enter vendor invoices on the project's Expenses tab (or with Add Expense on the Expense Budgets page), or, if you're connected to QuickBooks Online, enter the bill in QuickBooks and it comes into Factor automatically.
Viewing What You've Been Paid vs. What You Owe Subconsultants
Go to BILLING > Expense Budgets.
Check Only show subconsultant budgets? to limit the page to subconsultant budgets. This box is unchecked the first time you open the page, and Factor remembers your filter choices for next time.
Optionally narrow the list with the other filters: Vendor, Client/Project Names/Numbers, Expense Type, and Only Show if Budget Includes: (Any Expenses, Unpaid Expenses, or Ready to Pay Expenses).
Click Search. Filters do not apply until you click Search.
Each project is shown with its budgets. Click a budget to expand it.
The page shows active projects only. Closed projects and budgets that include a No Cost expense type are not shown.
What the Numbers Mean
When you expand a budget, the summary shows:
What it shows:
Estimated Pay to Vendor(s) (excl. tax) - the budgeted amount you expect to pay the vendor, as set on the project's Budget tab.
Estimated Charge to Client - that amount plus your markup. For example, $75,000 with 15% markup is $86,250.
Total Amount Invoiced to Client - what you've billed the client against this budget on finalized invoices, including fixed fee billing in the phases the budget is included in.
Estimated Markup Invoiced - the markup portion of what you've billed.
Received from Client Without Markup - the client money you've received for this budget, with the markup taken out, so it reflects only the vendor's share.
Available to Pay Vendor - the client money received for the vendor's share minus what you've already paid the vendor. It's shown in green when it's above $0.
Below the summary, each expense for the budget is listed with:
Submitted by Vendor - the amount the vendor billed you, before tax.
Paid to Vendor - what you've paid so far.
Paid Status - Paid, Partially Paid, or Unpaid.
Recommended to Pay? - shows Ready To Pay when the Available to Pay Vendor amount covers the unpaid balance of that expense. A total row at the bottom of each budget adds up the submitted and paid amounts.
By default the page shows the 10 most recent expenses for a budget plus any unpaid ones. Click Show All Paid Expenses to see the older paid ones.
How Factor Decides an Expense Is Ready to Pay
Factor takes the Available to Pay Vendor amount for the budget and assigns it to unpaid expenses starting with the oldest. An expense is marked Ready To Pay when the amount still available covers its unpaid balance; each expense marked uses up part of the amount. An expense that doesn't fit is skipped, and a later, smaller one may still be marked.
For example, if the client has paid and $25,000 is available, and the vendor has submitted a $15,000 invoice and a $7,500 invoice, both are marked Ready To Pay. If instead only $10,000 is available, a $15,000 invoice is not marked, but a $7,000 one would be.
Ready To Pay is a recommendation only. Factor doesn't stop you from paying a vendor before the client pays, or from invoicing the client before the vendor invoices you.
How Client Payments Are Counted
A client payment counts toward a budget when a finalized invoice that includes that budget's expenses or fixed fee phases has any payment recorded against it, whether the payment was recorded in Factor, applied through FactorPay, or synced from QuickBooks Online. Factor counts the budget's portion of that invoice in full as received.
Recording a Payment to a Vendor
Find the expense on the Expense Budgets page.
Click the amount in the Paid to Vendor column.
In the Update Expense Paid Amount window, enter the amount paid and, if you like, the Date Paid, then click Save.
Entering the full amount marks the expense Paid; a smaller amount marks it Partially Paid. For expenses that came from a QuickBooks bill, the paid amount follows the bill in QuickBooks, so record the bill payment there.
Permissions: the View Expense Budgets permission opens the page. Updating Paid to Vendor from this page, and the Add Expense button and edit icon, require Modify Employee Expenses and Modify Expense Budgets. By default, the Office Manager and Firm Owner roles have these permissions.
Things to Know
The page is interactive. It has no export and no grand total across projects or budgets. If you need a report version of this information, contact your Factor product specialist.
If the numbers look off, check that the vendor's invoices are entered as expenses with the right expense type, that the expense budget is linked to the correct phases, and that client invoices are finalized with payments recorded.