Retainers

A retainer is a pot of money a client pays you up front. You add the funds they prepay, then draw against that balance as you invoice them, so the client's advance is applied to real invoices over time. Retainers live on the Retainers tab of Invoices and are an owner or admin feature.

Setting up a retainer

1. Open Invoices and select the Retainers tab.
2. Select New retainer.
3. Choose a client under Choose a client….
4. Optionally scope it to a single Project; leaving this as Client-wide covers all of that client's work.
5. Select Create retainer.

A new retainer starts at a zero balance. Each client (or client-and-project) row shows its current balance in the list.

Funding it

Money on a retainer is added by hand as the client pays in advance:

1. Open the retainer with View.
2. Select Add funds.
3. Enter the Amount and a Date, and an optional Notes line.
4. Select Add funds to save.

The balance rises by that amount, and the deposit appears in the transactions list.

Drawing down against invoices

You spend a retainer from the invoice side. When an open invoice belongs to a client who has a retainer with a positive balance, the invoice's Payments panel shows a button such as Apply retainer funds ($1,000.00 available). Selecting it records a payment on the invoice from the retainer and reduces the retainer balance by the same amount. This is how prepaid money settles the invoices it was meant for, without the client paying again. The button appears only on invoices that are past draft and still have a balance due.

The transactions view

Open a retainer with View to see its full history. The transactions table lists each movement by Date, Activity, Notes, and Amount:

• Funds added — a deposit you recorded, shown as a positive amount.
• Drawn to invoice — an amount applied to an invoice, shown as a deduction.

Together these reconcile to the Balance shown at the top. If a retainer is no longer needed, Delete removes it and its history from view; the invoices it paid are unaffected. For how the invoices themselves work, see free-form invoices and invoicing tracked time.