Steps for running billing
- 01
Open Run billing and start from the preview you reviewed.
- 02
Check what is ready and what is waiting before you run it.
- 03
Run billing once.
- 04
Follow the invoices and emails it sends until each one is done.
What the finished work leaves you with
An approval record linking the reviewed preview to one billing run and the invoices and emails it produced.
What to do when the review finds a problem
More than one prepared run or preview exists
Pick the run whose franchises and preview your team reviewed.
The preview has deferred or blocked items
Resolve them or note them before approval so they are not mistaken for ready work.
The reviewed run is ready
Approve and submit once, then watch its progress instead of starting a second run.
The run finishes partly or fails
Open the resulting invoices or delivery records to see what went wrong.
A common mistake to avoid
Approving an older or different preview because its totals look similar.
Franchise billing processing checklist
Use this checklist when turning a reviewed billing preview into invoices. It confirms the run and that the preview is current, separates ready and held work, makes sure approval is submitted once, and follows the invoices and invoice emails until everything is done or assigned.
Before you start
- Open the prepared run and its latest reviewed preview before approving.
- Confirm the franchises, period, ready rows, held rows, and readiness status.
- Name who will watch the resulting invoices and emails after you submit.
When an invoice run fails or only partly completes
An invoice run can fail before any invoices exist, finish for only some franchises, or say complete while invoices and emails are still going out. Use the run’s status and per-row results to decide what to do, and do not start another run until you understand the first.
The run fails before creating invoices.
Check first
- Read the exact error and compare it with the preview and readiness check you approved.
- Check whether a billing rule, payment destination, reporting period, or assignment changed after approval.
- Confirm the franchises and period are still correct.
Next action
Do not resubmit yet. Fix what the error names, then create a new preview or run, and keep the failed run and its error so the retry does not hide what happened.
Confirm the result
The new run reflects the fix, and its results clearly separate created, deferred, and failed invoices.
Some invoices are created while others are deferred or failed.
Check first
- Compare each group with the preview’s included, deferred, and blocked rows.
- Open the row errors and see whether they share a billing rule, sales report, or payment destination.
- Make sure invoices already created are not in the retry.
Next action
Leave created invoices alone, send each failed or deferred group to its owner, and retry only those rows once the cause is fixed. Do not rerun everything by default.
Confirm the result
The retry lists only the unresolved rows, and each outcome links back to the original run.
The team is about to submit the same run twice.
Check first
- Look for an existing run with the same rule, franchises, period, and preview.
- Check whether the first run is queued, processing, complete, or waiting on Stripe.
- Compare the time of the preview with the run already submitted.
Next action
Pause the second submission and follow the first run until it finishes. If a retry is needed, approve one that leaves out invoices already created.
Confirm the result
One run is marked as the original, and any retry leaves out created invoices and says which run it follows.
The run says complete, but invoices or emails are still pending.
Check first
- Compare the run’s completion time with the latest invoice and email times.
- Check whether complete means the work was submitted or that every invoice was sent.
- Open a sample invoice and its email to see which step is still pending.
Next action
Treat the run as unfinished until you know where the invoices and emails stand, then send the remaining step to whoever owns invoices or email. The run status alone does not mean billing is done.
Confirm the result
The run note links its status to the invoice and email statuses, with an owner for anything left.
When you need to hand it on
- Include the run, preview, franchises, period, approval time, status, row errors, and invoices created.
- Leave created invoices out of any retry unless the owner explains why.
- Ask the billing owner to approve a retry once the original run is understood.
Link to the record instead of copying passwords or unrelated personal details into your note.
A situation to work through
A prepared billing run has several steps. Before approving, the reviewer expands every proposed item, checks that it is the same preview that will be processed, and confirms they understand any unresolved steps.
Keep the preview and the approval tied to the same run, review every step, and check the result after processing.
This is a planning example, not a customer result.
How should an organization run billing?
Start from a preview you have reviewed, check what is ready and what is waiting, run billing once, and follow the invoices and emails it sends. If something fails, the run shows what happened so you can pick it up.
Put the workflow into practice
In Granite, billing runs from a reviewed preview, and each run shows the invoices it created and the emails it sent.
Set it up in Granite with your own franchises, reporting periods and billing rules.