How to Create an Invoice

Invoices in Mica bill venues for film rental fees based on box office performance. You can create invoices individually from a booking's detail page, or process multiple playweeks at once using bulk invoicing. This guide covers both methods, along with invoice calculations, status lifecycle, and best practices for a weekly invoicing workflow.

Table of Contents

1. Before You Start
2. Method 1: Invoice from Booking Details
3. Method 2: Bulk Invoice Creation
4. Understanding Invoice Calculations
5. Invoice Status Lifecycle
6. Best Practices
7. Troubleshooting

Before You Start

Before creating invoices, ensure you have:

• Confirmed booking with playweeks — the booking must be in Confirmed status, not Expected
• Box office figures entered — either Flash or BOR/EBOR figures for the relevant playweeks
• Playweek status set to "Returns In" — this means actuals or EBOR figures for all playdays have been collected. Only invoice when the playweek has this status
• Payer assigned — the booking must have a payer linked to receive the invoice

Method 1: Invoice from Booking Details

Use this method when working with a single booking.

Navigate to the booking

You can access booking details from any of the following:

• Dashboard — click a booking in the Active Bookings section
• Bookings → Bookings — double-click a booking in the list
• Bookings → Playweeks — double-click a playweek row

Find invoiceable playweeks

Scroll down to the Terms section at the bottom of the booking detail page. Each playweek row shows its status and an Invoice column:

• ✅ Ready to invoice — status shows "Returns In" (yellow) or "Partial Returns" (orange), and a Create button appears in the Invoice column
• ❌ Already invoiced — status shows "Invoiced" (blue) with a document icon
• ❌ Not ready — status shows "Confirmed" (green), meaning no box office data has been entered yet

Create the invoice

1. Click the Create button for the playweek you want to invoice
2. The Create Invoice modal opens with a summary of the period, box office figures, and rental calculation
3. Review the breakdown: Box Office Gross → VAT deduction → Box Office Net → Film Rental → Burns deduction → Subtotal → VAT → Total
4. Add optional Remarks for notes or special circumstances - these will be included on the invoice PDF
5. Check the Payer field — you can change it if needed using the dropdown or the + button to add a new payer
6. Choose your action:
   • Preview — view a PDF preview before committing
   • Create — generate and save the invoice (can be sent later from Invoices → Browse)
   • Create & Send — generate the invoice and email it to the payer immediately

Verify the invoice was created

After creating the invoice:

• The playweek status changes to "Invoiced" (blue)
• The Invoice column shows a document icon instead of the Create button
• The invoice appears in Invoices → Browse

Method 2: Bulk Invoice Creation

Use this method to process multiple playweeks at once — for example, invoicing an entire week's worth of returns on a Monday morning.

Filter for invoiceable playweeks

1. Navigate to Bookings → Playweeks
2. Set your filters:
   • Date range — use the date picker or week navigation arrows
   • Status — filter by "Returns In" to show only invoiceable playweeks
   • Payment — set to "Open" to exclude already-invoiced playweeks
   • Optionally filter by production, venue, or payer
3. Click Search

Select and create

1. Select playweeks using the checkboxes — tick individual rows, or use the header checkbox to select all
2. Click Create Invoice in the Bulk Updates section
3. Review the bulk invoice summary
4. Click Create to generate all invoices at once

Understanding Invoice Calculations

Mica calculates invoice amounts based on the rental terms set on the booking. The key components are:

Rental methods

Box office figures

• Gross — total ticket sales revenue
• Net — Gross minus venue-applied sales tax and other deductions. This is the basis for rental calculation

Minimum Guarantee

If a Minimum Guarantee (MG) is set on the booking, Mica compares the calculated rental to the MG and invoices whichever is higher. The MG can apply to the full booking period, first week only, or each week individually, depending on how it was configured when the booking was created.

Invoice Status Lifecycle

Invoices move through the following statuses:

1. Created — invoice generated and saved, visible in Invoices → Browse
2. Sent — invoice emailed to the payer (either via "Create & Send" or manually from the Browse list)
3. Exported — invoice data exported to an accounting system
4. Paid — payment received and applied to the invoice

Crediting an invoice

If an invoice contains errors — wrong rental percentage, missing MG, incorrect figures — you can credit it. Navigate to the invoice in Invoices → Browse, open it, and click the Credit button. The credit is sent to the payer automatically, the playweek re-opens for editing, and you can then create a corrected invoice.

Best Practices

Weekly invoicing workflow

1. Every Monday (or your chosen day), filter the previous week's playweeks in Bookings → Playweeks
2. Verify all box office returns are complete
3. Update any playweeks from "Partial Returns" to "Returns In" where no further figures are expected
4. Use bulk invoice creation to process them all at once
5. Send to payers using "Create & Send", or send in bulk from Invoices → Browse

Quality checks

• Preview invoices before creating — especially for high-value bookings
• Verify rental percentages match the agreed terms
• Check the payer is correct before sending
• Use Remarks to document any special circumstances or adjustments

Troubleshooting

Related Articles

• Create a Booking
• Playweek Statuses - Quick Reference
• Creating a Payer