How to Properly Set Up Invoicing in STRATAFOLIO

Estimated reading time: 5 min

Benefits of Invoicing with STRATAFOLIO

Why should you use STRATAFOLIO for invoicing? With STRATAFOLIO, invoicing is simple and streamlined.

  1. Automatically Capture Rent Escalations – STRATAFOLIO automatically includes the correct lease escalations and operating expense amounts on all the invoices generated through the application. This means that you can consistently bill your tenants per the lease obligations without creating cumbersome spreadsheets and calendar reminders.
  2. Bulk Invoice Across All QuickBooks Company Accounts – Since STRATAFOLIO integrates all your QuickBooks accounts together in the Rent Collection section, bulk invoicing allows you to create invoices across all your QuickBooks accounts with just a couple of clicks. 
  3. Syncs with QuickBooks – Our bi-directional integration with QuickBooks ensures that invoices created in STRATAFOLIO are also automatically added to your QuickBooks account within minutes.
  4. Receive Payments in STRATAFOLIO – Since all of your tenants show up on the Rent Collection page of STRATAFOLIO, regardless of their QuickBooks account, adding payments is quick and easy. Once a payment is applied to a tent’s invoice in STRATAFOLIO, the payment is also applied to your QuickBooks account with minutes. This process eliminates the need for double data entry.
  5. Receive Payments with ACH – Receive Payments with ACH – Tired of tracking late payments? With the ACH option in STRATAFOLIO, tenants can set up automatic payments, so their payments are never late again. Your tenants can also make a one-time payment through the STRATAFOLIO ACH for things like late fees.

Ready to create an invoice in STRATAFOLIO? Click here for step-by-step instructions on Creating Invoices in STRATAFOLIO.

Looking for more information and details about Invoicing? Keep reading for Tips, Tricks, and other information about invoicing in STRATAFOLIO.

Invoicing Tips & Tricks

Invoice Number

The Invoice Numbers on the Rent Collection page are shown to easily see the status of the invoice. See the image below and the corresponding description for each number.

  1. This invoice is complete. The number is the number created by your QuickBooks account, and the $0.00  in the Balance column indicates that the invoice has been recorded as paid in QuickBooks.
  2. Two invoices were sent with a due date of 6/1/21. In this case, it looks like one is a duplicate because the Invoiced Amount is double the usual monthly amount. However, two invoices in one month could be correct if the tenant was billed separately for a special charge.
  3. This is a temporary number. When you first create an invoice in STRATAFOLIO, it will be given an “SF” number. The next time STRATAFOLIO syncs with QuickBooks, the number will update to the invoice number that is assigned by QuickBooks, and “SF” will be replaced with the QuickBooks generated number.
  4. The red highlight indicates that an invoice has not been Finalized. In this case, the invoice has been created and saved as a “Draft.” It has an “SF” number because the invoice has not been synced with QuickBooks and can not until it is finalized.
  5. There is no invoice created with this due date.

NOTE: After syncing with QuickBooks, if the invoice is not given a number from QuickBooks, for example, if is what appears (the number is missing), contact STRATAFOLIO support for more help as your QuickBooks settings may be affecting a functionality of our software. This link to the QuickBooks Community forum provides more information.

“Tenant Must Be Associated With An Accounting Software Customer”

On the Rent Collection page, if there is a red triangle next to the tenant’s name in the invoices column, hover over the triangle for more information. Generally, it is a warning indicating your tenant is not set up for invoicing.

Tenant, Acme Parts, is not set up in STRATAFOLIO for Invoicing. Continue reading below on what to do next.

The Accounting Software Customer must first be entered as a Customer in QuickBooks. Then, in STRATAFOLIO, you will select this customer under the Tenant information to link the two together.

Navigate to the tenant information and then select edit . Once in the Edit Tenant popup window, select the Accounting Software Customer from the dropdown options about halfway down the page. You can also select Print or Email under Invoice Preferences in this window.

Print or Preview Invoices

The Print or Preview Invoices button allows you to select the invoice(s) to download and print. When you click this button, you will be prompted to set the filter criteria for the invoices you want to print, then clicking Print Invoices will download a PDF file to your computer. The invoices created in STRATAFOLIO are already in a format to be mailed to tenants if you choose to print and mail them. This also allows you to save all of the invoices in one file or separately depending on your needs.

How to Email Invoices

Similar to Print/Preview Invoices, above, clicking on the Email Invoices button , will open a popup that allows you to set the filter criteria for the invoices you want to email directly to your tenants. The e-mail will include a PDF attachment that is the tenant’s individual invoice like the one shown in the section above.

NOTE: Tenant & Contact must be set up to receive invoices from STRATAFOLIO. See information below.

Set Up Tenants & Contacts to Receive Emailed Invoices

In order to email invoices the Contact & Tenant set up in STRATAFOLIO must include the following:

  1. The Contact in STRATAFOLIO must have an email address.
  2. The Contact in STRATAFOLIO must be set up to Receive Invoice Emails.
  3. The Tenant in STRATAFOLIO must have Email selected as their Invoice Delivery Preference.

To update the Contact or Tenant information, select Edit for either the Contact or Tenant and select the options in the images, below. You can have multiple emails receiving the invoice for the lease if you choose. All contacts that you would like to have sent the invoice to, must be set up to receive invoice emails and have a valid email address. Each time the invoice is emailed, all of the contacts with that setting will receive the invoices. This is especially useful for large box stores that have several departments that will need the invoices each month.

TIP: To quickly navigate to the Tenant or Contact information, click on the tenant name.

Contact Information
Tenant Information

Invoice Report

The Invoice Report function is especially useful for running a summary report of all the invoices for a specific building, asset, or time period. As with the other buttons discussed above, clicking the Invoice Report button will open a window where you can filter and set the date range for the report. Click Run Report and a PDF file will be downloaded to your computer. The PDF will summarize invoice information by the asset.

TIP: The last page of the Invoice Report is a summary of Invoice Report Totals which will show you the total amount invoiced for this report.


Single vs. Bulk Invoicing

Single Invoicing

  • Allows the most flexibility for reviewing & editing income items, classes, due dates, etc. for each invoice.
  • Allows adding amounts that are not included in the regular lease rate. For example, a one-time extra CAM charge due to underpayment in the prior term.
  • Allows the amount charged per income item to be changed manually to a different amount before syncing with QuickBooks.

Bulk Invoicing

  • Creates several invoices or many with just a couple of clicks.
  • Cannot edit the amounts or income items/classes on any of the invoices.
  • When adding information on the Add Invoices page, it will be reflected on all selected invoices being created.

Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to create Single or Bulk Invoices in STRATAFOLIO.

Editing an Invoice

Draft Invoice – Draft Invoices can be changed or deleted in STRATAFOLIO until they are finalized.

Finalized Invoice – Once an invoice is Finalized in STRATAFOLIO, any changes to the invoice must be made in QuickBooks. Any changes made in QuickBooks will be reflected on the invoices shown in STRATAFOLIO once the account is synced.

Error Messages

If you try to invoice a tenant that is not set up for invoicing in STRATAFOLIO, or if you try to email an invoice to a tenant without an email address, you will see an error like this:

To get more information on the specific error, select Download Errors to download a file with more information. Once the error is corrected, invoicing will be available for this lease.

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