Payment planning

Open this screen in Saral/projects/payment-planning

Four tabs: Paid invoices (the payments on the paid package bills and proformas of the projects you pick — an invoice with £5 or less left counts as paid; a part-paid one is on Unpaid — each marked paid in Saral, paid in Xero awaiting bank reconciliation, or reconciled in Xero), Unpaid invoices (everything still owed on the projects you can see and not on the plan yet — awaiting payment, part-paid, drafts in Xero and in Saral, proformas to pay), Payment plan (the invoices added from here to Accounts' one continuous payment plan for your projects, with a switch to also show the lines Accounts added, with the reasons, what was requested, what was approved and what goes in the next request) and History (every request sent for approval, its answer and its history). Every tab has the same green ribbon with a Group by, and the invoice tabs show package subcontractors only unless you pick All suppliers. Worker expense claims never show here. This page never pays: Accounts decides and pays on Payment Runs.

You enter

Which unpaid invoices go on the plan, each in full or a part amount
An invoice missing from the list: drop it in with Add invoice, fill what Saral could not read (company, project, cost code, and the supplier, number, date or total where blank) and send it to Accounts
Why a line must be paid (account on hold, work on hold, supplier threatening to stop, materials won't be released, overdue, or your own words), the urgency, the amount to request and a note
The order to pay within a project, with ▲▼ on the lines that have a reason
Who approves, and anyone to copy, when you send for approval

Saral fills in

The bills and their state from Xero, the drafts from BillScan and the proformas — nobody copies numbers between tables
Invoices from the group's own companies are left out — they are settled through the loan accounts
Who is a package subcontractor: a supplier with a package on the Payment Schedule, on any project, that is not typed supply only or labour only — matched by the package's supplier name, the firm's profile name and trading name, and the names the same firm has in the group's other Xero organisations
Worker expense claims pushed to Xero as bills are left out on every tab, and counted as hidden — Accounts pays them, they are never planned here
The project of each bill from its tracking option; a QS sees only their own projects. A bill whose lines are tracked to more than one project follows Xero: it shows under each project with that project's share ("Split: Riverside £6,000 · Riverside Phase 2 £4,000"), each project's totals count its share, and a total across projects counts the bill once. It is still one invoice — added, approved, sent and paid once, for the whole amount
Paid means cash paid: CIS that Xero withheld and credit notes applied are shown on the line, never counted as paid, so a CIS bill with nothing paid yet is Awaiting payment, not Part-paid. A draft in Saral for a CIS bill says it is gross — CIS not yet deducted
A draft in Saral that is the final invoice of a proforma is paid through the proforma, as on Payment Runs: the proforma's money covers it first and only what is left shows as to pay, so the same money is never counted twice
Possible duplicates — the same supplier and invoice number twice in the group, in any company — are shown on both lines, never hidden
A supplier's credit notes not yet allocated show beside its lines, for information; nothing is netted off
On the plan: whether Accounts has the line out in their own approval email, and how far the payment run holding a bill has got (approved, bank file made, downloaded). A bill HR is paying (an HR bank file or CIS payment) cannot be added
Drafts in Saral not in GBP are counted above the list — Payment Runs pays drafts in GBP only; they show once pushed to Xero
Subtotals per group (project, company, supplier or plan week), the totals and the KPI strip — per currency, since nothing is converted
On the plan: requested, approved (with Accounts until paid) and the next request — a part approval sends the balance again, a refusal goes again
The paid status of every paid bill and proforma: Paid in Saral · not yet in Xero, Paid in Xero · awaiting bank reconciliation, Reconciled in Xero — from Xero's own IsReconciled, never assumed
Payments made, grouped by project, company, supplier or the week paid, from Xero's payments and Saral's payment runs — the same figures the weekly email carries
The history of every request sent for approval: who sent it, to whom, the invoices and amounts, the answer per invoice, resends and withdrawals

It produces

An invoice added here is on Accounts' payment plan as "Proposed by QS", with your reasons and the amount to pay
Excel of the lines showing that have something to request: the same plain sheet the approval email attaches, a row per invoice under its company, with empty Approved to pay and CFO comment columns
An approval email with a one-time link; the answer lands on Payment Runs as already approved
The approver's email shows each invoice with what is owed and what is asked, a grand total per currency, and names every invoice with no PDF. He answers with the button, the Excel, or in words — a reply in words goes to Accounts to record; an out-of-office is ignored. After five days he is reminded once, and you are told if the request expires unanswered.

Which suppliers show

The QS plans the payments to package subcontractors, so by default the invoice tabs and Paid invoices show only suppliers with a package on the Payment Schedule (any project) that is not typed supply only or labour only. An untyped package counts; a package's own type wins over the type on the firm's profile. Pick All suppliers on the ribbon to see material suppliers, labour suppliers and everyone else. Worker expense claims pushed to Xero are never shown on this page.

Who can add to the plan

Anyone who can read the project cost reports sees the lists. Adding to the plan, giving reasons and sending for approval need the commercial-record write (the QS, Assistant QS and Accounts by default), on the projects they may see.

Paid status

Paid in Saral · not yet in Xero: a payment run paid it, or a bank file was sent, and Xero has not caught up — do not pay it again. Paid in Xero · awaiting bank reconciliation: Xero holds the payment, not yet matched to the bank statement. Reconciled in Xero: matched. “Paid in Xero” on its own means Saral's copy of Xero's payments has not brought that payment back yet, so reconciliation is not known; it updates after the nightly sync.

Who sees which requests

Anyone who can read the project cost reports sees the requests sent in the workspace. Someone limited to their own projects sees the requests they sent, and those whose invoices are all on their projects.

What Accounts sees

The invoice is on the payment plan as proposed by the QS, with your reasons and the amount requested. An approved amount stays with Accounts until they pay it on Payment Runs. A line paid in full then drops off the plan; a part-paid invoice stays on it, showing Nothing to send until there is more to request.

Next screen: /projects/calendar

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