14.5. Configure Per-Client Billing Email, Payment Terms, Tax Region, and Invoice Layout

Client billing settings live on each client's record and govern how that specific client is invoiced — who receives the invoice, when payment is due, which tax jurisdiction applies, how zero-dollar runs are handled, and which invoice layout is used. These per-client values override tenant defaults wherever a value is set, so you only need to populate the ones that differ from your global configuration.

Accessing Client Billing Settings

1. Open Clients from the sidebar.
2. Click a client to open their detail page.
3. Select the Billing tab.

The Billing tab on the client record contains three sub-tabs: General, Contracts, and Tax Rates. The client record also has a separate Tax Settings tab that sits next to Billing — it is a sibling of the Billing tab, not a sub-tab inside it.

Billing Tab — General Sub-Tab

The General sub-tab is where most day-to-day billing configuration lives. Treat it as the canonical place to set who gets the invoice, when it is due, and how the totals are calculated.

Billing Contact and Delivery

Payment and Financial Settings

Default Tax Region

The Default Tax Region field is on the General sub-tab. It selects the jurisdiction used to look up applicable tax rates when invoices are calculated for this client. This is the field most teams are looking for when they think of "client tax setup" — it does not live on the Tax Settings tab. See 14.4. Tax Rate Configuration for how tax regions and rates are defined at the tenant level.

Billing Cycle

The client's billing cycle and anchor are configured directly on the General sub-tab. The billing cycle defines a client's normal invoice cadence and anchors the dates on which recurring charges become due — the foundation of predictable, repeatable MSP invoicing. It answers two operational questions: how often is this client invoiced, and on which day or date does each billing period start?

Contract lines that use Invoice on client billing schedule as their cadence align to these dates, so most recurring MSP fees for a client land on the same invoice and the same due rhythm.

Fields

• Billing Cycle Type — weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or annually.
• Anchor — the specific day, weekday, or date the cycle resets, depending on the cycle type chosen (see below).
• Billing History Start Date — optional bootstrap date used when seeding billing history for a client that is being onboarded mid-cycle.

Billing cycle types

Alga PSA supports six standard MSP billing cadences:

Anchor dates

The anchor controls exactly when each billing period begins. The required anchor field changes label and behavior depending on the cycle:

• Weekly: Day of week (Monday–Sunday). If left unset, the schedule is treated as rolling.
• Bi-Weekly: A specific reference date (UTC midnight) from which two-week intervals are calculated. If unset, the schedule is rolling.
• Monthly: Day of month (1–28).
• Quarterly / Semi-Annually / Annually: A specific month (1–12) and day of month (1–28).

Note: The day-of-month anchor is capped at 28 for every cycle that uses one. This avoids the 29th–31st edge cases in short months — there is no "last day of month" option. Pick a day from 1 to 28 and the same boundary will land cleanly in every month of the year.

There is no global default for the billing cycle itself; each client is set individually. (A separate default for the recurring cadence source does exist on contracts — see below.)

How billing cycles interact with contracts

Contract lines have a cadence-source setting that determines whose schedule the line follows:

• Invoice on client billing schedule: The contract line follows the client's billing cycle. This is the most common choice for MSP recurring revenue, because it consolidates fees onto a single invoice tied to one cadence per client.
• Invoice on contract anniversary: The contract line follows its own start date. Useful when a specific agreement needs its own commercial rhythm — for example, a distinct anniversary-billed annual subscription that should not be reshaped to the client's main monthly cycle.

The Contract Wizard exposes a contract-wide default for this setting, labeled Recurring Cadence Default, which applies to recurring lines created in the wizard. Contract lines configured with different invoice windows appear as separate invoiceable items in the Generate sub-tab, even when they belong to the same client.

For configuring contracts and lines, see 14.6. Creating Client Contracts and 14.7. Contract Lines, Presets, and Examples.

Recommended cadences

• Use Invoice on client billing schedule for most standard recurring MSP fees (managed services, seat licenses, monitoring) so that everything aggregates onto the same monthly invoice.
• Default to Monthly on the 1st unless the client specifically requires another rhythm. It is the simplest cadence to forecast against and the easiest for clients to reconcile.
• Reserve quarterly, semi-annual, and annual cycles for prepaid commitments or clients whose fiscal calendar requires it (e.g., invoicing on the 15th to align with their AP run).
• Use Invoice on contract anniversary sparingly — typically for one-off annual renewals that must keep their own date and not collapse into the client's standard cycle.

Tenant-wide view

For a read-only spot-check of every client's cadence in one place, open Billing > Invoicing > Billing Cycles. The page lists each client's current cycle, anchor, and active contract assignments, with a View Client Billing link in the Actions column that opens the client's Billing tab. The list itself is read-only — all changes are made here on the client record.

Per-Client Feature Overrides

Two override blocks also live on the General sub-tab and let you depart from tenant-wide defaults for specific clients.

• Zero Dollar Invoice Settings — controls whether $0 invoices are generated or suppressed for this client. Available controls:
  • Use Default Settings toggle — when enabled, the client falls back to the tenant-wide setting from 14.2. Tenant Billing Settings.
  • Invoice Handling — choose between Create as Draft and Create and Finalize for $0 invoices that are produced.
  • Suppress Empty Invoices toggle — prevents zero-dollar invoices from being created at all for this client.

Billing Tab — Contracts Sub-Tab

The Contracts sub-tab lists the contracts assigned to this client and shows how each contract relates to the client's billing cycle. Use this view as a quick read-out of what the client is being billed for and to confirm that contracts are anchored to the correct cycle before generating invoices. Contract creation and editing itself is covered in 14.6. Creating Client Contracts.

Billing Tab — Tax Rates Sub-Tab

The Tax Rates sub-tab assigns a default tax rate to this client from the active tenant tax rates. A client-specific rate set here takes precedence over the region-based lookup driven by the Default Tax Region on the General sub-tab. Use this when a client has been negotiated a specific blended or fixed rate that should not be derived from the standard region table. Tenant tax rate definitions are managed in 14.4. Tax Rate Configuration.

Tax Settings Tab (Sibling Tab)

The Tax Settings tab is a top-level tab on the client record, not a sub-tab inside Billing. It captures the client's tax posture rather than its tax jurisdiction:

• Tax Exempt — when enabled, no tax is applied to this client's invoices.
• Tax Exemption Certificate — optional certificate identifier shown when Tax Exempt is enabled. The certificate field appears only after the Tax Exempt toggle is on.
• Reverse Charge Applicable — for B2B international transactions where the client self-assesses tax under reverse-charge rules.
• Tax Source — whether tax is calculated using the Internal engine or an External provider.

Note that the Default Tax Region field is not on this tab. It is on the Billing tab's General sub-tab. The Tax Settings tab governs whether and how tax is applied; the region governs which rates are looked up.

Best Practice

• Set the billing contact (or Alternative Billing Email) and delivery method for every client during onboarding so the first invoice run does not stall on missing recipients.
• Use consistent payment terms across the book unless a specific client agreement requires otherwise — this keeps AR aging reports comparable.
• Verify the Default Tax Region for every client, especially when clients sit in different jurisdictions than the tenant default.
• Only assign a client-specific Invoice Template when the client requires a different look or content from your tenant default layout. See 14.18. What Are Invoice Layouts for layout management, and 14.12. Generating Invoices for how these settings flow through invoice generation.