Prompt Payment Discounts

A prompt payment discount is a fixed or percentage amount discounted from an invoice, it will have a date where it expires (a number of days before the due date) and on that date the discount is automatically removed from the invoice, so that the invoice total is restored back to the original amount.

Here's an example showing a prompt payment discount o 10% applied:

The discount can be applied in two ways:

1. All new invoices

If you use the first option then Paidnice will apply the discount to new invoices as they are imported (typically within a few minutes) and then after applying the discount you can send a discount notification (see below) to let the customer know they have a discount available. This is the default option.

2. Only unsent invoices

If you use the second option, then when the discount is applied it will check if the invoice has been sent to the customer in Xero or QuickBooks and if it has, the discount will not apply. This way the invoice won't be changed after it has been sent.

To use this option, do not send the invoice immediately in Xero, only save and approve it. The discount will be added in the background (typically within 5 minutes) and then you should see the discount on the invoice, and you can send it to your customer from Xero.

You can also use Paidnice to send the invoice to the customer using an email template you have customized.

Note: If you edit an invoice - changing the amount or due date after the discount is applied, the discount will not re-calculate and will still be applied at the original date. We recommend duplicating the invoice using the Copy to option in Xero or the Duplicate option in QuickBooks to quickly make a new version of the invoice to update the amounts or dates. This way the discount will be re-calculated on the new invoice.

Creating a prompt payment discount

To create a prompt payment discount click on the group you wish to apply a discount for and create a new Prompt Payment Discount Policy:

Then configure the prompt payment discount policy:

Choose how recent an invoice needs to be in order to have a discount applied. By default any invoice issued in the last 2 days would get a discount, but you can set this to more or less depending on if you create invoices much later than when they are 'issued' - for example you typically create invoices on a Friday for work done on a Monday (issue date Monday), you would need to set this to 5 days so those invoices are considered eligible to be discounted.

You can choose a name, decide if it should be a fixed amount or a percentage, decide how many days before due date the discount expires, and which account and amount to use.

You can customise the messaging on the invoice line and there are also advanced options on the More options tab.

Once created you can preview the discount on any existing invoice using the 'Preview Policies' tab of any invoice.

By default a new discount policy is not retroactively applied to old invoices, only to new invoices going forward, and only if those invoices are eligible. You can force a discount to be applied by processing specific older invoices using the 'process now' option for the invoice.

You can configure a discount email template and send your customer a discount email when the discount applies. This is useful if you have the discounts applying to new invoices even if they've already been sent to the customer.

To do this first create a template (or use our sample to get started):

It could look like this example:

Select the email template when you create the policy - or if you choose not to send a notification then select no template.

If you make changes to a discount policy (for example changing the amount of the discount or the number of days to keep the discount) then these settings only apply on a going forward basis, already applied discounts will not change.