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14.14. How Accounting Works in AlgaPSA: Invoices, Payments, Credits, and Your Books
A complete overview of accounting in AlgaPSA — how billable work becomes invoices and credit notes, how payments and client credit are tracked, and how AlgaPSA keeps your QuickBooks or other accounting system in sync.
AlgaPSA is where your MSP bills clients. Your accounting system is where you keep the books. That accounting system can be QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, Xero, or another package.
Accounting in AlgaPSA connects the two. It turns billable work into invoices and credit notes, records the payments that come back, handles adjustments, and keeps AlgaPSA and your accounting system telling the same story.
This page is the map. It explains the documents AlgaPSA produces, how money and credit move, and the two ways AlgaPSA hands data to your accounting system. Each section links to the doc where the screens and fields live.
The documents AlgaPSA produces
AlgaPSA accounting comes down to two kinds of financial document, plus a running credit balance for each client.
| Document | What it represents |
|---|---|
| Invoice | A standard charge to a client for services, products, or usage. Once finalized it gets a client-ready number and total. |
| Credit note | Value you owe back to a client. It might be an over-charge correction, a goodwill adjustment, or a return. A finalized invoice with a negative total becomes a credit note with its own CM- number. |
| Client credit balance | A running balance of credit a client can draw against future invoices. It is built up from credit notes and prepayment invoices. |
Those documents are produced from contracts, time, and usage. The billing docs cover that side. The rest of this page covers how money and credit move through them.
From billable work to an invoice
Billable time, products, and usage do not become revenue right away. First they move through approval, invoicing, and finalization.
Record the work. Technicians record billable time in Time Management > Time Entry. They tag the client or work item, the service, and the duration. When AlgaPSA can match the client, service, and date to an active contract line, it knows the billing context before invoicing. That lets you catch issues early instead of at month-end.
Figure 1: A technician records billable work in a time sheet period before submitting it for approval.
Approve it. Submitted time appears in Time Management > Time Sheet Approvals. Approval is the gate for invoicing. Only approved billable time should reach client billing.
Figure 2: Approval confirms the billable labor is ready for invoicing.
Generate the draft. Billing staff run Billing > Invoicing > Generate. AlgaPSA gathers the approved, unbilled charges, applies the contract rules (hourly rate, bucket consumption, overage, tiered usage), calculates tax, and presents draft invoices for review. See 14.12. Generating Invoices for the full workflow.
Figure 3: The draft invoice is the final review point before finalization.
Finalize it. Finalizing turns a draft into the client-ready invoice. It also locks the underlying time, usage, and service-period records so they cannot be billed again. Two more things happen at this point. AlgaPSA fixes the document's identity, so a negative total becomes a credit note (see below). And it applies any client credit that is available. The full drafts and finalized lifecycle is in 14.13. Managing Draft and Finalized Invoices.
Invoice generation is only one source of invoices. Billing staff can also create manual invoices for one-off charges, and prepayment invoices to collect money in advance. Both are covered in 14.12. Generating Invoices.
Getting paid
A finalized invoice is owed until it is paid. AlgaPSA records payments in three ways, and it updates the invoice status as money comes in.
| Payment source | How it is recorded |
|---|---|
| Online (Stripe) | The client pays a finalized invoice through a payment link. AlgaPSA reconciles the payment automatically. See 14.16. Online Payments. |
| Manual entry | Billing staff record a check, ACH, wire, or cash payment received outside AlgaPSA. |
| Synced from your accounting system | When QuickBooks Online is connected, a payment recorded in QuickBooks is applied back onto the matching AlgaPSA invoice automatically. |
As payments land, the invoice moves through statuses such as sent, partially applied, paid, and overdue. Your billing and accounting staff always know what is still outstanding.
Credit notes and client credit
Sometimes you owe a client value back. It might be a corrected over-charge, a goodwill adjustment, or a return. In those cases you issue a credit note. A credit note documents the adjustment and adds to the client's credit balance. AlgaPSA then applies that balance against open or future invoices, automatically at finalization whenever the client has credit available.
Prepayment invoices feed the same balance from the other direction. They hold money a client paid in advance until it is applied to real charges.
The full credit-note workflow is in 14.23. Issue and Apply Credit Notes. It covers creating one, applying client credit, and how it all reaches your accounting system.
Tax
AlgaPSA calculates tax on each invoice line. It uses the client's tax region and the taxability of the service. You can let AlgaPSA calculate tax internally, or delegate it to an external accounting package. Set the calculation source and regions in 14.2. Tenant Billing Settings, and the regional rates in 14.4. Tax Rate Configuration.
Connecting AlgaPSA to your accounting system
This step keeps your books in agreement with your billing. AlgaPSA offers two models. Use whichever one fits your accounting team.
Figure 4: Accounting exports package finalized invoices for QuickBooks, Xero, or CSV-based workflows. The QuickBooks Online adapter delivers straight into the connected company instead of producing a file.
| CSV / file export | Live QuickBooks Online sync | |
|---|---|---|
| Direction | One-way: AlgaPSA → file → your accounting system. | Two-way: invoices and credit memos out, payments and changes back. |
| Delivery | You build an export batch and import the file on the accounting side. | AlgaPSA delivers automatically and reconciles continuously. |
| Setup | None. Pick the adapter and export. | A one-time connection and mapping. |
| Best when | Your accountant prefers to drive the import, or you use QuickBooks Desktop, Xero, or another package. | You use QuickBooks Online and want invoices, credit memos, and payments to stay aligned without manual steps. |
CSV and file export. You build an export batch for a billing period or client, validate the line mappings, and deliver a file. Your accounting team imports that file on their side. This works for any destination and needs no live connection. The full batch lifecycle, filters, and error handling are in 14.17. Accounting Exports.
Live QuickBooks Online sync. You connect a QuickBooks Online company once. After that, AlgaPSA does the rest automatically. It exports finalized invoices and credit notes, pushes payments out, applies QuickBooks payments back onto AlgaPSA invoices, and watches for changes made directly in QuickBooks. Set it up with 10.20. Connect QuickBooks Online, then operate it with 14.22. Keep AlgaPSA and QuickBooks Online in Sync.
Keeping AlgaPSA and your accounting system in sync
The goal is to keep AlgaPSA and your accounting system in sync. They should agree on every invoice, credit, and payment.
With CSV export, that process happens manually, on your team's side. AlgaPSA helps by excluding any already-exported invoices from new batches. You cannot import the same records twice.
With the live QuickBooks Online sync, the process is continuous and automatic. AlgaPSA alerts you whenever something cannot be reconciled, whether it is an invoice changed in QuickBooks, a payment against an already-settled invoice, or a missing mapping. The Sync Health panel shows you what is still waiting to sync. 14.22. Keep AlgaPSA and QuickBooks Online in Sync describes these problems and how to clear them.
The accounting concept map
| Concept | Where it lives |
|---|---|
| Standard invoices | Generating Invoices · Managing Draft and Finalized Invoices |
| Credit notes and client credit | Issue and Apply Credit Notes |
| Online and manual payments | Online Payments |
| Tax | Tenant Billing Settings · Tax Rate Configuration |
| CSV / file export to accounting | Accounting Exports |
| QuickBooks Online connection | Connect QuickBooks Online |
| QuickBooks Online ongoing sync | Keep AlgaPSA and QuickBooks Online in Sync |
Month-end operating checklist
- Ask technicians to finish time entry before the cutoff, and managers to approve all submitted time.
- Run billing from Billing > Invoicing and review the draft invoices.
- Confirm contract rates, bucket usage, taxes, and any purchase-order requirements.
- Finalize the approved drafts, then send or download the invoices.
- Record any payments received outside AlgaPSA, and confirm online payments reconciled.
- Issue credit notes for any adjustments, and confirm client credit applied where you expected.
- Deliver to your accounting system. Either create and execute an export batch, or confirm the live QuickBooks Online sync shows a clean last cycle with no open exceptions.
- Confirm the invoices, credits, and payments landed correctly in the accounting system.