Creating a self-bill

Self-billing is a financial agreement between a customer and a supplier where the customer prepares and sends the invoice.

To aid in the provision of a self bill agreement, TransMaS allows you to generate a self-bill and apply orders to it. This can be used for a variety of reasons, such as not wanting details on the invoice, providing an external invoice template, or you have engaged your customer with a self-bill agreement where they provide the amount they will pay you.

Setting a customer to self-bill

To use self-billing for a customer, you must go into their profile and correctly set up their account. You can do this by:

  • Click Settings in the main menu
  • Click Customers
  • Locate the customer in the list, and click the view button
  • Select the Invoicing tab on the left
  • Ensure the self-bill checkbox is ticked
This will prevent the customer showing in the extract batch list. A customer cannot exist in both batch extract and self-billing at the same time.

Creating a self-bill

Unlike with a normal invoice, you first need to create the self-bill record itself. To do this follow the below steps:

  • Select Accounts in the main menu
  • Select Selfbills
  • Click Add Selfbill at the top right
  • In the screen shown:
    • Customer: Type the customer code or name and select it from the list
    • Selfbill Reference: The reference shown on documents from the customer (or something internal)
    • Selfbill Date: The date of the self-bill, only jobs up to this date can be added
    • Selfbill Value (NET): The total value of the self-bill. This can be changed later
  • Click Create Selfbill and the new self bill will be generated and loaded

Allocating orders to a self-bill

Once a self-bill has been generated, you must now allocate orders and/or queries to it. To do this we recommend always using the Full View option and we will use that screen in the description below.

A self-bill acts like a container for a variety of charges, including:

  • Order Charges
  • Order Surcharges
  • Queries from previous bills
  • Additional costs

All of these can be allocated from this screen. When viewing the full view, the first section shown is the self-bill details card, this shows you the information you entered on the previous screen as well as providing you with the ability to add an additional free type value to balance a self-bill.

To add an order to the self-bill, navigate to the available orders card which includes a table of all orders and surcharges ready to be assigned (Orders must still be completed and confirmed)

You can search for an order and you will see a record showing the details of the order, plus the rate you have entered against it. Alongside you will also see a Payment column with an input box, this is pre-filled with the expected rate, however you can change this to the paid customer rate.

Clicking the tick next to the box will save that item against the bill and add it to the assigned lines section (a reload may be required to see updates).

Automatic Queries

If you change the rate to a lower value than you expected to be paid (based on the rate on the order) then the system will automatically place the self-bill line into query status. Which means you can allocate the remainder on another bill (see below).

An order in query is still marked as invoiced when the self-bill is closed and does not prevent you from matching the details.

My totals don't balance

Totals often can be a penny out due to rounding, or maybe the customer has paid more than they should have. For cases like this we have built the additional charges box in the top section (Self Bill Details) which allows you to describe the costs, and then provide a value.

This value will be added to the total of allocated orders and queries, and can be used as a balancing item to complete your self-bill. This will be included in the invoice total in the final step.

Billing queries

If an order is added in query, this will then show up in a list under the Outstanding Queries card, you may need to click the header for the box to expand.

Outstanding Queries provides you with a running total of all outstanding queries where customers have underpaid you potentially. To resolve this, on a future self-bill, you can then add the outstanding queries in the same way an order is added, and this will mark it as resolved.

Quick Tip: You can mark a query as resolved with a zero value if you just want to clear it down.

Marking a self-bill complete

Once you have allocated all of the self-bill records, you can then mark a self-bill as complete and generate an invoice.

Scrolling to the top of the Full View screen, in the self-bill details card, once the Selfbill Value and Current Assigned boxes match exactly, a new button will be available of Produce Invoice. Clicking this will require some additional data entry to finalise the invoice (note this can only be undone by generating a credit note).

In the box that appears:

  • Invoice Date: The tax-point of the invoice to generate
  • Reference: This will be shown on the top right of the invoice (template dependant) and in your accounts package
  • Invoice Total: Automated total based on the self-bill value

Once all fields are ready, clicking create will generate an invoice for this self-bill.

Self-bill invoices

A self-bill invoice is different to a normal invoice. TransMaS generates a single line invoice which only refers back to the self-bill number instead of listing out all orders. This allows the system to maintain the data and keeping your accounts system clean.

A self-bill invoice will act the same as a normal invoice, and can be sent to your customer if you wish as confirmation.


One a self-bill has been invoiced, it no longer displays on the standard listing under Accounts > Selfbills. To view completed bills, you will need to change the selector at the top of the page from Pending to Invoiced which will show up to 6 years of self-bills.

Adding a document

You can upload a single document to each self-bill and it must be in PDF format and no more than 10MB in size. You can do this from the full view screen, and at the top right corner click upload document.

This can be used to save a copy of any supporting document such as your own internal list of orders, or the original document sent by the customer. This will be stored for the duration the self-bill is visible in your account.

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