How Billing Works: Per-Visit, Monthly, and Manual

HomeWatchTools gives you full control over how each property gets billed. You can have invoices drafted automatically the moment a visit is completed, let work accumulate and bill the whole month at once, or create every invoice yourself by hand. You choose per-property, so you can have some clients on monthly billing and others on per-visit — whatever matches the agreements you have with each homeowner.

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Step 1: Set the Property's Billing Rate

Before billing can work, the app needs to know what to charge. Open a property and go to its Billing tab:

• Base Rate — your standard fee per visit. This is the main charge that appears on every invoice for this property.
• Additional Line Items — recurring extras that appear on every invoice, such as "Pool check — $15" or "Mail collection — $10".

If a property has completed visits but no base rate set, it still shows up as unbilled — but with a $0 estimate and a reminder to add a rate. Set the rate, and those visits become billable immediately.

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Step 2: Choose a Billing Model

On the same Billing tab, choose one of three billing models:

Invoice each visit (automatic drafts)

The most hands-off option. Every time a visit is marked complete, HomeWatchTools automatically creates a draft invoice for that property — or adds the visit to an existing open draft — including:

• The property's base rate for the visit
• Any additional line items set on the property
• Any concierge work that was completed and marked billable during that visit

The invoice is created as a draft, so nothing is sent to your client until you review it and click Send. Concierge work now lands on these drafts automatically — you no longer have to remember to pull it in by hand.

Best for: clients you bill separately for each visit, or properties where you want to review and send invoices visit by visit.

Monthly roll-up

Visits and concierge work accumulate through the month without creating any drafts. When you're ready to bill — usually at the end of the month — you go to Finance → Ready to Bill and create one invoice per property that covers everything outstanding for that period.

Best for: clients on a monthly retainer, or properties where you prefer to send one tidy invoice per month rather than one per visit.

Manual

Nothing is drafted automatically. You create invoices yourself at any time by going to Invoices → New Invoice and pulling in visits and services manually. Full flexibility, full control, more work.

Best for: special billing arrangements, one-off invoices, or properties that don't fit the standard patterns.

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Using Ready to Bill (Monthly Properties)

For monthly properties — and for any time you want to clear a backlog — Finance → Ready to Bill is your command center.

It shows every property that has completed work that hasn't been invoiced yet: visits, concierge services, or both. Each row shows the property, the count of unbilled visits, the count of unbilled concierge tasks, and an estimated total.

To create invoices:

1. Open Finance → Ready to Bill.
2. Review each property's row. If an estimated total is $0, check that the property has a base rate set.
3. Tick the checkboxes for the properties you want to bill — or use Select all.
4. Click Create draft invoices. One draft invoice is created per property, covering everything outstanding through today.
5. Go to Invoices, review the drafts, and send them.

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Keeping Track of Unbilled Work

You'll always know what's waiting to be billed without having to go looking:

• Dashboard → Attention Strip — an "Unbilled work" chip shows the total dollar value of completed, uninvoiced work and links straight to Ready to Bill. If the chip isn't showing, everything has been invoiced.
• Finance → Overview — the same "Unbilled work" tile sits alongside your collected, outstanding, and overdue numbers so you can see the full financial picture at a glance.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between the billing model and what I had before? The billing model (per-visit, monthly, manual) replaces the older single auto-invoice checkbox. "Invoice each visit" behaves like the old auto-invoice; "Monthly" and "Manual" don't auto-draft anything. Your existing properties were migrated to match their previous behavior, so nothing should have changed unless you chose to update it.

Does creating a draft invoice send it to my client? No. Automatically-drafted and Ready-to-Bill invoices are created as drafts. They go to your client only when you open the draft and click Send to Client.

Can the same visit end up on two invoices? No. Once a visit or concierge task is on an invoice, it's marked as invoiced and won't appear in Ready to Bill or be added to another draft. There's no way to accidentally double-bill.

Why is a property showing $0 in Ready to Bill? It has completed, unbilled visits but no base rate set. Open the property's Billing tab, add a rate, and the estimate updates.

What if I change a property's billing model partway through a season? The change applies going forward. Completed visits that are already on a draft invoice are not affected; any visits not yet on an invoice will follow the new model from the moment you save.

Where do I go to actually send the invoices? After creating drafts from Ready to Bill, go to Invoices to find them. Open each one, review the line items, and click Send to Client. See the Invoicing & Getting Paid guide for the full invoice workflow.