How to Create a Retention 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

To create a retention claim:

1. Go to Invoices > Retentions.
2. Locate and click the required outstanding retention or go to Options > Create Retention Claim.
3. Adjust the Date Issued, Payment Due terms and Invoice Comment as necessary.
4. View all retentions held or rebated in the Retentions Held table, then adjust the Retention Claimed amount as necessary.
   
5. Click Finish.

You can then email the retention claim to the customer from the Forms tab.

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.

If you have renegotiated the contract value for a job, but you already created a retention claim, you can create a credit note to apply to the claim, which then transfers across to your accounting package.

To create a credit note:

1. Access the job that the retention was applied to.
2. Create a linked job variation and add the cost centre you wish to credit.
3. Access the cost centre and go to Details > Summary.
4. In the Parts & Labour breakdown, click the icon next to Total.
5. Enter a '-' symbol, then enter the value you wish to credit on the retention claim to create a negative value cost centre.
6. Click Save and Finish.
7. Click Invoice Job.

To apply the credit note to a retention claim:

1. Go to People > Customers.
2. Click Options > View > Statement on the customer.
3. Under Summary, click Apply on the credit.
4. In the Credits table, click Apply on the credit.
5. Under Invoices, enter the credit Amount Applied against the retention claim.
6. Click Apply Credit.

Then when you export to your accounting package, the retention claim transfers across with the credit applied as normal.

US only: If you use Simpro Premium in the United States, the term 'change order' is used instead of 'variation'.

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

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.

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.

View the claim log

Click the Log tab to view a history of actions in that claim, along with the logged-in employee who performed them and the date and time.

Actions logged in the Message column of the log can include:

• Creation and modifications
• Status updates
• Printing and emailing forms
• Payment.

Need additional help?

Try Walk Me Through, our step-by-step guidance tool, to create a retention claim.

In Simpro Premium, go to Help > Walk Me Through and search Create a Retention Claim / Create a Retainage Claim.

Learn more in How to Use Walk Me Through in Simpro Premium.