Understanding Invoice Dates

Article Contents

1. Introduction
2. Key Dates on Your Invoice
3. Why Three Dates Are Better Than Two
4. How Revenue Date Affects Timesheet Selection
5. How Revenue Date Affects Which Invoice Lines Are Enabled
6. Configuring Default Date Settings
7. Filtering Financial Reports

Introduction

When creating invoices in Hiro, you’ll notice three important dates: Revenue Date, Issue Date, and Due Date. These give you more flexibility than traditional accounting systems and help you better align your invoicing with the work performed and your reporting needs.

Key Dates on Your Invoice

• Revenue Date
  This represents when the revenue was earned — usually when the work was completed. It’s primarily used for financial reporting and to determine which timesheets are included on the invoice.

  For example, if your team finishes work on a project in March but you do invoicing in early April, you can set the Revenue Date to 31 March. That ensures your reports reflect the right financial period — even if the invoice is issued weeks later.

• Issue Date
  The date shown on the invoice PDF, usually when the invoice is sent to the client. It’s the official date the invoice is considered issued.

• Due Date
  The date payment is expected. This is used to calculate when follow-ups begin and impacts your receivables reporting.

Why Three Dates Are Better Than Two

Most accounting platforms — like Xero, QuickBooks, Reckon, and MYOB — only provide two invoice dates: Invoice Date and Due Date.

The Invoice Date acts as a catch-all — it's used to:

• Date stamp the invoice PDF

• Indicate when the invoice was issued

• Determine which reporting period the revenue falls into

This setup often forces businesses to backdate invoices to match the period when the work was done. While that might keep internal reports tidy, it can be confusing for clients who receive invoices dated well before they were actually sent.

Hiro separates these concepts by introducing a dedicated Revenue Date, giving you more control and clarity without compromise.

Using both Revenue and Issue Dates gives you flexibility:

• Accrual Reporting
  You can reflect when the work was actually done — not just when the invoice was sent — which helps with accurate month-end reporting.

• Client Clarity
  You can still use the Issue Date to indicate when the invoice was sent to your client, avoiding confusion or disputes from backdating.

• Smoother Reconciliation
  Your finance team can match revenue to the period it was earned, which is helpful if you track performance or budgets monthly.

This approach is especially helpful for businesses that invoice monthly based on completed work — a common workflow in professional services.

How Revenue Date Affects Timesheet Selection

When raising an invoice in Hiro, WIP timesheets (timesheets not yet allocated to an invoice) are selected automatically based on the Revenue Date.

Here’s how it works:

• All WIP timesheets up to and including the Revenue Date are automatically ticked

• Any timesheets dated after the Revenue Date are left unticked by default

Want to include more timesheets? You’ve got options:

1. Change the Revenue Date
   Move it forward to include later work. When you save the new Revenue Date, you’ll be prompted to choose whether to reset Time & Costs to match the updated date.

   ⚠️ Note: This will affect when the revenue appears in your financial reports.

2. Keep the Revenue Date and manually add timesheets
   Leave the Revenue Date unchanged. Instead, click into the Time & Costs column of any invoice line to open the Allocate WIP popup. From there, you can manually tick or untick timesheets — including ones after the Revenue Date.

How Revenue Date Affects Which Invoice Lines Are Enabled

For new invoices, Hiro makes a one-time decision about which invoice lines are enabled after a job is selected, since the lines are generated based on the job’s details. Lines are enabled if both of the following conditions are met:

• Your user account’s department matches the department of the invoice line

• There is WIP timesheet activity for that line item up to and including the Revenue Date

If the Revenue Date is changed after the job has been selected, you’ll be prompted to choose whether to reset Time & Costs to match the updated date. Any invoice lines that remain off after this will not turn on automatically, but can be manually enabled using the red pill switch beside each invoice line.

To ensure Hiro selects the most appropriate invoice lines, it's best to update the Revenue Date before selecting the job when raising a new invoice. This ensures Hiro preconfigures the invoice with the most accurate line and timesheet selections.

If you routinely adjust the Revenue Date to match today’s date, you might consider updating your organisation’s invoice settings so that new invoices default to today instead of the end of the previous month.

Configuring Default Date Settings

By default:

• Revenue Date is set to the last day of the previous month

• Issue Date is set to today’s date

If your business prefers a different default behaviour, you can adjust it — but you must be a Hiro Global Administrator to make these changes.

To update the defaults:

1. Go to Settings > Invoices

2. Choose your preferred default dates for new invoices

3. Click Save

Filtering Financial Reports

In reports like the Invoices Report, Hiro gives you the option to filter based on either:

• Revenue Date (default): reflects when the work was performed

• Issue Date: reflects when the invoice was actually sent

You can switch between these views depending on how you need to analyse your business performance.