Invoices and credits

A direct organisation is invoiced monthly for its seats. This page covers how those invoices are collected, where to read them, how to pay one by bank transfer, and how a credit reaches one.

If a managed service provider runs Sigil for you, your provider is invoiced rather than you and none of this appears in your portal. See partner billing.

Nor does it appear for an organisation on a free arrangement. Where the Billing view carries a “Not billed” badge, seats are not invoiced. An internal or comped plan that has saved a card or bought an add-on still gets the Documents tab, holding the invoices for those purchases only. See the arrangement it names.

Two ways to be collected

Collection	What happens
Card	The invoice is charged to the card on file the moment it is raised
Invoice terms	The invoice is emailed to your billing contact and is payable within an agreed number of days

Card is the default, and it is what a self-served signup gets. The invoice is charged the moment it is raised, so nothing is normally left outstanding unless that payment fails.

Invoice terms are agreed with Tophhie Cloud rather than switched on in the portal. There is no setting for it, because extending credit is a commercial decision rather than a preference. Ask support, and terms are put in place on your account. Terms apply to invoices raised after they are agreed. An invoice already open at that point is still collected the way it was raised.

When collection changes in either direction, or the number of days you have to pay changes, your administrators, everyone with the Billing role and the billing email on your billing profile are emailed “How you pay for Sigil has changed”. It gives the new number of days on terms, or, on a move back to card, asks you to check the Billing page has a payment method. Saving the same terms again sends nothing.

Paying on invoice terms

Terms are counted in days from the date the invoice is issued. Thirty days is the default, and ninety is the longest that can be agreed.

Stripe emails the invoice to your billing contact and you pay it from its hosted page, by card or by bank transfer. Nothing on your account is charged automatically, and no card is asked for anywhere.

To pay one by card from the portal rather than from the email:

1. Open Billing in the portal sidebar.
2. Open the Documents tab.
3. In the Invoices list, choose Pay on the invoice. It is shown on any invoice that is still open.
4. Enter the card in the form that opens and choose the button, which names the amount due. If your bank asks you to confirm the payment, follow its prompt.

A “Payment received. Thank you.” message confirms it, and the list re-reads so the invoice shows as paid. Paying this way does not put the account onto card collection: the card pays that invoice, and later invoices still arrive on your terms.

To pay by bank transfer instead, choose View on the invoice. Its hosted page on Stripe opens in a new tab and carries the bank details to pay to.

While an invoice on terms is open, a reminder above the list says to quote the invoice number as the payment reference on a bank transfer. See paying by bank transfer.

That last part is worth stating plainly, because it changes several things at once. Every prompt in Sigil that would otherwise mention a card reads how your account is collected before it says anything: the trial reminders, the overdue emails, the notices on the Billing view, the cancellation and reactivation confirmations, and the Add payment method button, which is not shown at all.

One prompt does not yet make that check. Once an invoice is past its due date, the warning at the top of the portal reads “Your last payment failed” and asks you to update your card or pay the open invoice, with a Fix payment button. On terms there is no card to update, so pay the open invoice. The notice on the Billing view itself gives the right wording.

The Billing view says which arrangement you are on where it would otherwise show the card, as “Invoice · net 30” or whatever term was agreed.

The trial converts into an invoice

An organisation on terms does not need a card before its trial ends. The subscription starts by itself and the first invoice is emailed, payable on your usual terms.

That is a real difference from a card account, where a trial that ends with no card on file cancels the subscription rather than billing anybody by surprise. On terms there is nothing to be missing, so the trial reminder says so rather than asking for a card.

The billing details are the one thing a trial on terms does need. The first invoice has to be addressed, so a trial whose billing profile is still incomplete near its end is set to end on its trial date rather than converting. Terms cannot be put in place at all until the profile is complete.

Reactivating a cancelled subscription works the same way. The first invoice is emailed straight away on your usual terms instead of being charged to a card.

Your invoices

The Billing view lists your invoices, newest first, up to the last two dozen. Each row carries the invoice number and date, the period it covers, the total, its status, and its due date. An invoice collected from a card has no due date, so that column reads “charged to card” instead.

Status	What it means
Paid	Settled, and nothing is owed
Awaiting payment	Issued on terms and not yet due
Open	Issued against a card and not yet settled
Overdue	Issued and past its due date
Void	Cancelled before payment. It is not owed and no replacement is implied
Written off	Marked uncollectible. Raise it with support before assuming it is settled

An invoice that has been partly settled, by a credit or a part payment, shows what is still remaining underneath the total.

Every row links out to the invoice’s own hosted page, which is where the PDF lives and, on terms, where the bank details for a transfer are printed. There is a separate download beside it for the PDF on its own. An open invoice also has a Pay button, which pays it by card in a form on the page.

Downloading an invoice

You need the Admin or Billing role, or a custom role given Billing.

1. Open Billing in the portal sidebar.
2. Open the Documents tab.
3. In the Invoices list, find the invoice and choose the download button at the end of its row. Its tooltip reads Download the PDF.

Choose View instead to open the invoice’s hosted page on Stripe in a new tab.

Paying an open invoice by card

You need the Admin or Billing role, or a custom role given Billing.

1. Open Billing in the portal sidebar.
2. Open the Documents tab.
3. In the Invoices list, choose Pay on the open invoice.
4. Enter the card in the form that opens and choose the button, which reads Pay followed by the amount still due.

This is the quickest way to settle a payment that failed, without leaving the portal. It pays that one invoice and does not change the card your subscription is charged to. To change that card as well, see changing the payment method. Saving a new card there also pays the latest open invoice, so you need only one of the two.

The card details go straight to Stripe in a form Stripe draws, and never pass through Sigil. If the form reads “This invoice can’t be paid by card here. Use the invoice page instead.”, choose View and pay on the hosted page. An invoice that has been paid, voided or written off in the meantime is refused with “This invoice isn’t open, so there’s nothing to pay.” See also paying on invoice terms.

The list is read live rather than from a copy held here, so it shows what your invoices actually say. If it cannot be read, the view says so and offers to try again rather than showing an empty history, which would read as “you have never been invoiced”.

Invoice history used to be reachable only through the Stripe customer portal, which needs the sign-in that added the card. Somebody in accounts paying an invoice on terms has no reason to hold that, which is why the list is in Sigil itself.

Draft invoices are left out. Stripe prepares the next cycle’s invoice shortly before it issues, and a draft has no number, no PDF and no amount anybody owes yet.

Paying by bank transfer

An invoice on terms can be paid by transfer. The bank details are on the invoice and on its hosted page rather than in the portal.

Quote the invoice number as the payment reference. A transfer is matched on its reference first, then on the amount, then against the oldest open invoice, so one carrying the number is reconciled without anybody looking at it.

A transfer that arrives without a usable reference is not lost, but it is not applied either. It sits on your account as a balance, and the Billing view says so, naming the amount received and that it has not reached an invoice yet. Somebody applies it by hand within a working day. If it is still showing after that, raise it with support. Money that is never applied is returned by Stripe after 75 days, and the invoice is still unpaid.

That gap is worth taking seriously rather than assuming it sorts itself out. A transfer sitting unapplied leaves the invoice open, and an open invoice past its due date keeps counting down the window before signatures stop. Paying without a reference is not the same as paying.

Where a payment ends up covering more than the invoice it was for, the excess is credited to your account and appears in the credits list below, so a smaller invoice next month has an explanation attached to it rather than being a surprise in your favour.

Purchase order reference

The billing profile has a Purchase order number field, up to 140 characters. Whatever you put there is printed on every invoice as a PO number field of its own.

Set it if your finance system will not process an invoice without one. It is a free text field, so it takes whatever form your own purchase orders use.

Credits and corrections

The Billing view carries a credits list: every credit and correction applied to your account, with the reason it was agreed.

Viewing your credits

1. Open Billing in the portal sidebar.
2. Open the Documents tab.
3. The Credits list sits below the invoices.

It reads “No credits have been applied.” until there is one.

The reason is the point of it. A credit that appears on an invoice with no explanation is a support ticket six months later, when nobody remembers what it was for.

Column	What it holds
Date	When it was issued
Amount	The amount credited to you
Type	The category, whether it is an account credit or a credit note, and the month a service credit is for
Reason	The explanation, written for you rather than for internal use

There are two instruments, and which one is used depends on whether there is an invoice to correct.

An account credit sits on your account and comes off whatever is invoiced next.

A credit note is raised against an invoice already issued. Where that invoice is still open, the credit note reduces what is owed on it. Where it has already been paid, the amount goes onto your account balance instead and a credit note document is issued for your records.

Credits fall into four categories.

Category	When it is used
Service credit	A shortfall against a service level commitment, carrying the month it is for
Goodwill	A concession agreed outside any commitment
Billing correction	An error on an invoice, put right
Other	Anything else, including an overpayment returned to your balance

Credits are applied to invoices and are not paid out in cash. That is stated in the terms of use, and for a partner it is also how the agreement’s service credits are settled.

A credit waiting on your account is also shown on the Your subscription tab, under Payment, with the amount and a note that it comes off the next invoice, so it is visible before the invoice that consumes it arrives.

Credits are issued by Tophhie Cloud rather than requested in the portal. A direct organisation has no uptime commitment behind it, so a credit to one is a concession rather than an entitlement, and the category says which.

Each credit is emailed to the same people as the other billing emails, with its amount. An account credit says it comes off your next invoices until it runs out. A credit note says it reduces an open invoice or, if that invoice is paid, goes onto your account. The reason Tophhie Cloud recorded is shown in the credits list rather than in the email. See the availability commitment.

When an invoice goes unpaid

The 21 day window before signatures stop is the same on terms as on a card. What differs is when it starts.

On a card it starts at the first failed payment. On terms it starts at the invoice’s due date, because that is the first moment anything is late. Net 30 therefore means an invoice can be unpaid for up to 51 days from issue before signatures stop.

Paying inside that window ends it. Nothing was stopped and nothing needs reprovisioning. See what happens if billing lapses.

The two overdue emails are the same two a card account gets, worded for terms: one when the invoice first goes past its due date, and one about a week before signatures stop. Neither mentions a card or a retry, because neither is happening. See emails Sigil sends.

Who can see this

Admins and the Billing role. It sits behind the same billing permission as the rest of the Billing view.

An API key cannot read either list. The invoice rows carry links that view and pay an invoice, and the credits list carries the commercial reasoning behind concessions, neither of which belongs behind a credential that runs unattended.