What is Alto E-Invoicing?
Invoice & Estimate with Alto is a powerful tool that helps entrepreneurs manage the invoicing process. It addresses the challenges faced by today’s users face by ensuring a secure and efficient exchange of documents with your business partners and clients.
Alto e-invoicing is user-friendly and combines many useful features with advanced functionality. In this series, we walk through the app and explain it.
- App Walkthrough Part 1: Clients
- App Walkthrough Part 2: Settings
- App Walkthrough Part 3: Invoices
- App Walkthrough Part 4: Projects
- App Walkthrough Part 5: Vendors & Expenses
Vendors & Expenses
Cash flow is vitally important, whether you are a sole proprietor or part of a team. You need to keep an eye on your expenses every day to make sure money is coming in and going out correctly.
Let’s see how Invoice & Estimate with Alto makes it easy to track your expenses and bill them efficiently.
The third tab of the app shows Expenses and Vendors.
Expenses are the costs you incur while completing work for a client. Expenses are purchased from a vendor – a person or company that provides these goods or services – and then billed to the client.
But before we can add expenses, we need to add the vendors we are paying or sub-contracting.
Adding Vendors
Tap the Vendors button at top to see a list of current vendors.
To add a new vendor, tap the Plus Icon at top right and the New Vendor screen will appear.
In the New Vendor popup, enter the vendor’s Contact Name (Keith Varinder), Vendor Name (3D Matterport), Email, Phone Number, URL, and Street Address. Tap the Camera Icon to take a photo or add a photo from your library.
If the vendor is already listed in your phone’s Contacts, you can tap the Add From Contacts button to import their data.
Tap Save to add the vendor to your list. You can now refer to them when adding expenses.
To edit a vendor’s information, tap the Edit button at the top right.
Adding Expenses
Tap the Expenses button at top to see a list of current expenses.
To add a new expense, tap the Plus Icon at top right and the New Expense screen will appear.
The current date is listed at top. This cannot be edited.
In the New Expense popup, add the Client, Project, Vendor, and Category by selecting from lists of existing values. So, for example, if you are adding an expense from a new vendor, you will need to add the vendor before you create a new expense.
The Amount and Notes are added using the keyboard. Attachments can be included from Dropbox, Github, or your phone’s photo library.
Billing Expenses
To see a list of expenses for each client, tap the client’s name.
The Client Expenses Detail shows a calendar and a list of expenses for that month.
Tap on any date to see the expenses added that day. To scroll to a different month, tap the arrows at the left and right of the month name.
If you wish to add another expense, tap the Plus Icon at top right.
And when you’re ready to bill your client for the expenses on the list, tap the Bill Expenses Icon next to the plus icon to open a New Invoice popup.
The un-billed expenses and client details will be added automatically. If you need to change or update any information, simply tap on a field and type.
Tap Save, and the invoice is now included on your Invoices tab.
Expense Reports
Invoice & Estimate with Alto generates reports on a all aspects of your business. For example, tap the Calculator Icon in the Charts tab to see a graph of total expenses by Daily, Weekly, or Monthly view, as well as your most active customer and how much they spend each month.
In an upcoming article, we’ll show you how to use the application’s powerful charts to review your progress week by week or year by year.
Invoice & Estimate with Alto was built for freelancers, consultants, and small businesses by a team of freelancer and small business founders.
Create your free account today and find out why more than 30,000 freelancers and small business owners love Invoice & Estimate with Alto.
