Choose how a customer's invoices are grouped

Deciding whether a customer receives one invoice for the period or several, and on what basis they are divided.

New — check with DFRNT before using it on live invoicing

This setting was added at the end of July 2026 and is still being finished. Check with DFRNT before relying on it, and try it on a period you can re-run before using it on a live invoice run.

Before you start

Be clear on why the customer wants their invoices split. The four modes look similar and produce very different paperwork, and the wrong one is only obvious after a run.

The four modes

One invoice per job. Every completed job becomes its own invoice. Use it when a customer treats each delivery as a separate transaction — for example when each job is billed to a different project and they need to pass invoices on individually.

Group by reference. Jobs are gathered by the reference on the job; each distinct reference produces one invoice. Use it when a customer’s own system works in cases, orders or batches, and they want one invoice per case.

Jobs with no reference do not pile up together — each one gets its own invoice. If a customer expects “everything unreferenced on one invoice”, this mode will surprise them.

Split at an amount. Jobs are taken in date order and a new invoice starts whenever adding the next one would take the running total past a limit you set. Use it when a customer has an approval ceiling — invoices above a certain value need extra sign-off, so they would rather receive several smaller ones.

If no limit is set, 5000 is used.

Separate one reference. You nominate a reference value. The customer gets two invoices: one containing every job carrying that reference, and one containing everything else. Use it when a customer runs one regular programme of work that they want billed together and kept apart from their ad-hoc jobs.

This produces two invoices, not one per job. Every non-matching job goes together on the second invoice.

Steps

1. Confirm which mode the customer wants, using the descriptions above.

2. Go to Accounts›Clients and press View on the customer.

3. On the Details tab, find Billing Configuration — Accounts›Clients›(open a client)›Details›Billing Configuration.

4. Set Invoice Splitting. The choices are:

   • No splitting — one invoice for the period (the default)
   • One invoice per job
   • Group by reference number
   • Split when total exceeds limit
   • Separate invoice by reference filter

   Only one applies to a customer at a time.

5. If the mode needs a value, set it — the limit for Split when total exceeds limit, or the reference to nominate for Separate invoice by reference filter.

6. Save, then run invoicing as usual from Accounts›Create Invoices. Grouping is applied during the run.

Good to know

Only completed, non-voided jobs are considered. A customer with one job or none gets one invoice regardless of the rule. The first group keeps the original invoice number — the additional invoices are new numbers. And a customer has one grouping rule, not several; the limit on a split-at-an-amount rule and the reference on a separate-one-reference rule are chosen per customer.

If something goes wrong

Nothing split. The most common causes: only one job qualified, or the jobs were not completed. Grouping ignores incomplete and voided jobs entirely.

More invoices than expected on a group-by-reference rule. Check for jobs with no reference. Each of those becomes its own invoice.

Only two invoices when you expected many. That is separate-one-reference working as designed — it always produces two.

Related

• How invoicing fits together
• Create an invoice template for one customer