How to Create a Progress Claim

In order to view content or perform actions referred to in this article you need to have the appropriate permissions enabled in your security group. Go to System > Setup > Security Groups and access your security group to update your permissions. The relevant security group tab and specific permissions for this article can be found here:

Create Invoices & Credit Notes

Approve Invoices

Print/Email Invoices & Statements

You can invoice individual or multiple jobs in the following ways:

You can then Create a progress claim as normal.

Raise progress claims to invoice for part of a pending, in progress, or completed job, such as when one stage of a project has been completed.

You can claim per item or enter the decided Claim Amount value as a percentage or an absolute figure at the section level or cost centre level. If you choose to claim by value, the Claim Per Item option is not available for any subsequent progress claims for that job.

In the graph to the right when you create a progress claim, you can then view the Total Claimed in green, the amount Outstanding in red, and the amount you are Claiming Today in dark green.

There are several additional tools you can use in Simpro Premium to assist in calculating your claim amounts so that you maintain positive cash flow:

To create a progress claim: ​

1. Ensure all job details are updated, then Invoice a job as normal.
2. Select Progress Claim as the Invoice Type.
3. Select the Date Issued. This defaults to the current date.
4. The Period indicates the first schedule date to the most recent schedule date on the job.
5. Under Payment Due, select the number of Days from invoice date or Days after EOM (end of month) that the payment is due.
   • This automatically populates according to your financial default / customer settings. Learn more in How to Set Up Financial Defaults and Adjust customer settings.
6. Select the Invoice Stage.
   • This indicates your business's internal approval, not the customer's approval, and depends on your security group permissions.
7. UK, IE only: Select the applicable CIS / RCT Deduction Rate. Learn more in How to Manage CIS / RCT with Simpro Premium - UK, IE Only.
8. Enter the Claim Amount for each cost centre as a percentage or absolute figure, or alternatively, click Claim All.
   • To claim a percentage of an entire section, enter the Claim percentage in the grey bar below the section name.
   • Alternatively, you can Claim per item.
9. Click Finish.

Progress claims are numbered in order of issue. The first claim you raise is named Progress Claim #1, subsequent claims are labelled as #2, #3 etc, while the final progress claim is labelled as Final Claim.

The percentage claimed on each cost centre is passed onto the selected income account.

For example, a progress claim is raised to invoice 50% of a cost centre with a value of $100, $90 is assigned to Income Account A and $10 is assigned to Income Account B. The claimed percentage is split between each income account, therefore 50% of Income Account A’s value and 50% of Income Account B’s value is invoiced.

50% of $90 = 45

50% of $10 = 5

Total invoiced value = $50 (50% of $100)

If you are invoicing a job containing a membership cost centre to sell a membership to a customer, you need to invoice the full amount of the cost centre to make it active in the customer card file. Learn more in How to Sell Memberships.

Raise a progress claim with reference to the number of billable items or deliverables. You can add more non-billable items to a job after creating the invoice and then claim those items.

The items that you have already claimed are locked.

To claim per item:

1. Ensure all job details are updated, then Invoice a job as normal.
2. Create a progress claim as normal.
3. Under Claim Per Item, select Yes.
4. Enter the Quantity Claimed for the applicable items.
5. Click Finish.

If you are invoicing a job containing a membership cost centre to sell a membership to a customer, you need to invoice the full amount of the cost centre to make it active in the customer card file. Learn more in How to Sell Memberships.

On the final claim of the project, click Finalise Claim to ensure all remaining cost centres are claimed, then click Finish. The retention amount is added to the final invoice.

The progress claim summary provides an overview of the cost centres and sections claimed to date, the progress claims created and paid off, and the remaining claim balance.

You can view the claim summary on the itemised invoice form generated when you Email a progress claim if you have enabled it to appear in your invoice forms setup. Learn more in Claims .

You can then view the following below the Balance Due:

Transactions such as finance charges and late payment fees do not appear in the Paid column of the Claim Breakdown as they are not part of the progress claim.

If you have selected Restrict Unapproved Invoices in System Setup, invoices must be in the Approved stage before they can be emailed to the customer, paid off, voided, or credited. If you have not selected Restrict Unapproved Invoices, invoices can be emailed to the customer before they are approved, but you must approve the invoice before applying payments.

To automatically approve claims upon creation, go to System > Setup > Defaults > System > Invoices > Invoice Stage and select Approved. Alternatively, select Pending to require them to be manually approved by an employee with the correct security group permissions.

To approve a claim still in the Pending stage:

1. Access the applicable claim.
2. Click Unlock.
3. Under Invoice Stage, select Approved.
4. Click Finish.

After you have completed and approved a progress claim, you can then email an invoice form directly to the customer from Simpro Premium.

Learn how to adjust how your invoice form PDFs display, including the form title, form totals, materials and labour information, footnote, header fields, and more in How to Set Up Invoice Forms.

Learn more about using form builder templates in How to Use Form Builder Templates.

To email an invoice form:

1. Click the Forms tab in the claim.
2. Select the form you wish to send from the Templates list.
   • See Assign form templates to appear when emailing a customer invoice to learn how to update the forms that appear here.
3. Click View to preview and / or print the form.
4. Select a Primary Contact to address the form to and click to add additional Contacts if required.
   • This is automatically populated by the primary contact for invoicing defined in the customer card file.
   • Alternatively, you can manually enter email addresses and separate them with a comma. To remove recipients, click Clear Recipients.
   • Any secondary contacts selected when setting up the lead / quote / job are pre-populated in the Cc field. You can also add more recipients in the Bcc field if you want to hide their email addresses from other recipients.
5. Adjust the default Subject and Body template if required.
   • See Set up the email template for customer invoices to learn how to update this template.
   • Alternatively, click Clear Email to enter a new Subject and Body, or select a script from the Insert Script drop-down. Learn more in How to Use Scripts.
6. Click Send > OK > OK.

A log entry is then created in the Log tab, where you can view the email text and any form attachments.

If you need to send multiple invoices, consolidated as a customer statement, use the Aged Receivables Report. Select the customers you want to email a statement to and click Email in the footer options. Alternatively, to send multiple individual invoices use the Sales Invoices Report. Generate the report as required, select the check boxes for the invoices to email and under Print Options, select the invoice form and click Email at the bottom of the page.

It recommended that you do not generate DOCX when you click View as it allows you to alter the invoice outside of Simpro Premium. This can cause errors within your accounting system and impact reporting.

For additional training, complete an interactive material in the Simpro's Learning Toolbox. Learn more in About Simpro's Learning Toolbox.