A catch up period is essentially a missed billing event in the past.

Catch up periods are automatically calculated by Ignition when you set billing rules to start in the past.

For example - If you need to capture 2 months worth of billing for work that started 2 months ago, you can set the billing start date to begin 2 months ago from the present date.

This will create 2 catch up periods for the 2 months of work that your client will be billed for.

You can choose to bill this manually or set it so that it bills automatically when the proposal is accepted by your client!

Catch up periods are automatically calculated by Ignition by editing a Billing Rule → changing the Specific Date when the services begin billing.

Simply select a date in the past and this will create catch up periods automatically depending on how many catch up periods you want to charge for.

If Acceptance is selected, the billing will only start once the proposal has been accepted.

If Proposal start date is selected, the catch up billing will be back-dated to the date you set in the On a specific date field in the General step of your proposal. If On acceptance was chosen in the General step, the billing will only start from the day the proposal is accepted.

If Specific date is selected, your client will be billed catch up periods from the date specified here until the actual date they accept the proposal. This date cannot be set any earlier than the date you entered into the On a specific date field in the General step of your proposal.

As noted above, your proposal start date is found in the General step and defines when both parties will be bound by the terms and conditions of your proposal. This date can be set in the past if catch up periods are required.

Once you have edited the Billing Rule, you will see a warning in the proposal editor that notifies which rule has calculated catch up periods.

🚨 Please be careful of setting a date too far in the past as this may result in large catch up periods being charged to your client!

This is what catch up periods look like on the proposal from your clients perspective. It will show in the Schedule step of the proposal.

The screenshot was taken on 3 November 2022.

The Bookkeeping Service was set to start billing on 1 Oct 2022 (on the 1st of every month), meaning that there are two catch up periods automatically calculated.

When the proposal is accepted, the invoices for these catch up periods will either be automatically sent out to your client or will sit in your client's Billing Schedule tab depending on how you set up each service's billing mode.

If a billing mode is automatic, then the invoice for that service's catch up period will be sent automatically to your client once the proposal is accepted. If you are using Ignition Payments, your client will be charged for the catch up periods once their proposal is accepted.

If you do not want your client to be billed automatically, you can change the service's Billing Mode to manual but please note that all invoices moving forward will need to be manually invoiced. If you're in this scenario, we suggest editing the service's Billing Mode and make it automatic, after you bill for the catch up period.

💡 Best practice tip: We suggest leaving all billing modes as automatic (where possible) and advise your client early that there will be upfront charges for catch up periods once they accept the proposal.

This means that you can capture all the missed billing as well as ensuring that invoices are created automatically in the future.

If the billing mode is manual, you'll need to remember to navigate to your client's Billing Schedule tab and manually invoice the catch up period as well as every invoice moving forward.

If you accept a proposal on a client's behalf that includes catch up periods, you will be notified before you can confirm the acceptance and input payment details that the proposal contains catch-up periods and the total minimum value.