Invoice a retainer or an advance
You can record a schedule of retainers or a one-time advance in Dynamics 365 Project Operations for a project contract. This action doesn't immediately make the retainer or advance available for use. For the retainer or advance to be available for use and to charge the customer, you'll need to invoice it first.
Complete the following steps to invoice a retainer or an advance.
Select Sales > Billing > Retainers and Advances.
On the Advances and Retainers page, use the filter to select the specific retainer or advance to invoice and mark it as Ready to Invoice.
Create an invoice manually from the Project Contract list or from the detail page. The retainer or advance is shown on the draft invoice in the Advances and Retainers section on the Invoice page.
Confirm the invoice. This action will make the retainer or advance available for use. You can verify the invoice on the Retainers and Advances list page. For an invoiced advance or retainer, the available amount will be shown in the grid.
Create a retainer or advance from the invoice grid
You can create a retainer or an advance directly on an invoice.
On a draft invoice, on the Advances and Retainers subgrid, select New to create a new retainer or advance.
On the Quick Create page, add the necessary information and then select Save. The retainer or advance is created on the project contract that's related to the invoice. The retainer or advance is automatically marked as Ready to Invoice and then added to the Advances and Retainers subgrid on the Invoice page.
Reconcile an invoiced retainer or advance
You can use or reconcile an invoiced retainer or advance on an invoice with time, expenses, milestones, or other project-based charges. Project Operations automatically applies the retainer or advance to the invoice. You can view it in the Applied Retainers and Advances grid on the Project Invoice page.
The following list shows information for the fields in the Applied Retainers and Advances grid of the Project Invoice page.
On this page, you'll find several key fields that are important to the invoices and can affect them downstream.
Description - This field is read-only and provides a description of the retainer or advance that's used on the invoice. You can't change this field on the invoice, but you can update it on the subgrid on the Project Contract page. Additionally, you can display this field on the invoice to show the retainer or advance to the customer who's receiving the invoice.
Delivered On - Read-only field that provides the invoice date of the retainer or advance that's used on the invoice. You can't change this field on the invoice, but you can update it on the subgrid on the Project Contract page. You can display the field on the invoice to show the customer the date when the retainer or advance was first invoiced.
Amount - Read-only field that shows the amount of the retainer or advance that's used on the invoice. You can't change this field, but you can update it on the subgrid on the Project Contract page. You can display the field on printed invoices to show the original amount of retainer or advance that was paid.
Amount Used - Read-only field that shows a calculated value that summarizes how much of the retainer or advance has been used. You can display it on the printed invoice to show the amount from this retainer or advance that was already used.
Extended Amount - This field is editable and shows the amount of the retainer or advance that's being used on this project invoice. It can't be more than what's available in advance, but you can decrease this amount to use less than what's available. It's automatically calculated by the difference between the Amount and Used Amount fields on the grid. You can show this field in the printed invoice to indicate the amount from this retainer or advance that's being used on the invoice.
Balance Retainer Amount - Read-only field that shows the value of how much of the retainer or advance will be left after the invoice is confirmed. You can display it on a printed invoice to indicate the amount that's left from this retainer or advance after the invoice has been confirmed and paid.