Billing profile

The billing profile holds the company details that address your invoice: legal name, billing email, billing address, a VAT or tax identifier, and an optional purchase order reference.

It is pre-filled

At onboarding, Sigil pre-fills the profile from your organisation’s registered address in Entra. In most cases it is already close to correct when you first look at it.

Check it before the trial converts, since that is when it starts appearing on real invoices.

What each field does

The legal name is the entity the invoice is addressed to. This is often not the same as the trading name your organisation uses day to day.

The billing email is where Stripe sends invoices and receipts. Point this at whichever inbox your finance team actually reads rather than at an individual, so invoices survive somebody changing job.

The billing address appears on the invoice and is what Stripe uses to decide whether VAT applies and at what rate. Saving a complete profile is also what switches tax calculation on for your subscription, from the next invoice. See VAT.

The VAT or tax identifier is registered with Stripe as a managed tax id. The type is derived from the country you set, so a United Kingdom address produces a UK VAT registration and an EU address an EU one. Getting the country right matters for this reason.

A country outside the UK and the EU has no matching type, so an identifier entered against one is kept in Sigil and shown on your profile, but is not registered with Stripe and will not appear on the invoice. Sigil holds it rather than rejecting it, because the alternative is refusing a number that is perfectly valid in its own jurisdiction. If you need a tax identifier printed on invoices from a country in this position, raise it with support rather than assuming the saved value has reached Stripe.

Registering the identifier is deliberately the last thing done when you save, so a tax number Stripe will not accept cannot stop the rest of the profile being written. You are told when that happens, and the address is saved regardless.

Once a number is registered, the tax authority’s answer is shown under the field: Verified, with the registered name where the authority gives one, or Not recognised by the tax authority. While the answer is awaited the field reads Checking, and if the authority cannot be reached it says so and the check is tried again. Changing the number clears the old answer.

The purchase order reference is printed on every invoice, in a field of its own labelled PO number. It is optional, and free text up to 140 characters, so it takes whatever form your own purchase orders use.

Set it if your finance system will not process an invoice that does not carry one. Holding it on the profile rather than typing it onto each invoice is what stops a monthly invoice being bounced for the want of a reference nobody remembered to add. Clearing the field takes the line off future invoices.

When it counts as complete

The profile is complete once it carries a legal company name, a billing email and a full postal address: address line, town or city, postcode and country. The form marks each of those as required. The VAT number is the one field left out, because an invoice can be issued without it but cannot be addressed or delivered without the rest. The country also decides how tax is charged.

Until it is complete, the getting started checklist shows the billing details step as outstanding, and a prompt sits at the top of every page in the portal for anybody who can open Billing. Its button goes straight to the Billing details tab. The prompt can be put off for the rest of the browser session until the trial has been set to end for want of the details. From then on it names the date and stays. The prompt never shows on the Billing view itself, where the form is. Getting started also leaves it out, because the checklist already asks, until that end date has been set. An organisation nobody invoices is not asked for any of it.

What waits on it

Using Sigil does not wait on the billing details, and neither does the trial. What waits on them is money starting to move.

Adding a card is refused until the profile is complete, with a message naming what is missing. So is reactivating a cancelled subscription, and so is moving your account onto invoice terms.

A trial about to convert is the case to watch, because nobody has to press anything for it to happen. With a card on file, or on invoice terms, the subscription starts by itself when the trial ends. If the details are still incomplete in the last day and a half before that, Sigil sets the subscription to end on the trial’s end date instead. Your billing contacts are emailed the date and what happens either way, the Billing view explains it, and the prompt at the top of the portal becomes a warning.

Saving complete details before that date lifts it, and the subscription starts as normal when the trial ends. It makes no difference where they are saved: in the Billing view, in the Stripe customer portal, or by Tophhie Cloud support on your behalf. Keep subscription is not offered for this kind of end, because saving the details is what lifts it. If Tophhie Cloud extends your trial, the pending end is lifted too, and set again if the details are still missing as the new date approaches. Sigil never moves the trial date by itself.

If the date passes without them, the trial ends, signatures stop and nothing is charged. Nothing is deleted either, and reactivating later asks for the same details.

A trial with no card on file is left alone. It was already going to end without a charge.

Where it is stored

The profile is held in Sigil and pushed to your Stripe customer record whenever you save it, and again at provisioning.

Holding it locally means it stays editable and fast to read even if Stripe is briefly unavailable. Pushing it means your invoices carry the current details without anybody re-entering them.

If a save reaches Sigil but the push to Stripe fails, you are told so rather than being shown a success message while invoices carry the old details. Save again to retry.

Edits made in Stripe come back

The Stripe customer portal, linked from the Billing view, lets you change the same details there: name, email, address and tax identifier. Those edits are mirrored back into Sigil.

This matters for more than tidiness. Without it, the profile here would keep showing the old details, and the next save from here would push them back over the correction made in Stripe.

The one exception is a tax identifier for a country Sigil never registers one for. Stripe holding none there says nothing about the value kept here, so the local one is left alone rather than being cleared.

Who can edit it

Admins, the Billing role, and any custom role given the billing capability, from the Billing view. It sits behind the billing capability like the rest of that view, so the person who owns the finance relationship can correct the details on an invoice without also being handed the signature library.

Editors, Marketing, Viewers and the Compliance role do not reach it.

If your organisation is managed by a partner, the partner maintains the billing relationship instead. No partner role reaches a client’s billing, because a managed client has no subscription of its own. See partner billing.

If your organisation is itself a Sigil partner, this one profile addresses both your partner invoices and, after the partnership ends, your own. See your invoice details.

Changing it later

You need a role with the billing capability: Admin, Billing, or a custom role given it. The steps are the same whether you are completing the pre-filled profile for the first time or correcting it later.

1. Open Billing in the portal sidebar.
2. Open the Billing details tab. It carries a ! marker while the profile is incomplete, and the Add billing details button on the prompt at the top of the portal lands here too.
3. Fill in Company name (legal), Billing email, Address line 1, City, Postcode and Country. Each is marked required. Address line 2 and Region / county are optional.
4. Add a VAT number if you are registered for one, and a Purchase order number if your invoices need one. Both are marked optional.
5. Choose Save billing details.

A “Billing details saved.” message confirms it, and the tab shows when the profile was last updated. If the trial had been set to end for want of the details, the message says instead that it is no longer set to end. If the VAT number is refused, everything else is saved and the message names the problem with the number. If Stripe could not be updated, the message says so and asks you to save again later.

The getting started checklist opens the same form in a dialog titled Billing details, with the same Save billing details button.

The change is pushed to Stripe immediately. Invoices already issued are unaffected; future ones carry the new details.

If a tax identifier changes, update the country first if that is also changing, so the identifier is registered with the right type.