Milestone invoicing for contractors and fit-out firms
Bill each stage of a job as its own invoice against the schedule you agreed, take the deposit before the site opens, and keep one running balance per client across every certificate.
How it runs
Stage by stage
billed against the schedule, not at the end
- Each stage its own invoice, one balance per job.
- Stage by stage — billed against the schedule, not at the end
- Same customers, same ledger, one follow-up trail
Who this is for
If you run Construction and fit-out and bill the same customers again and again, this page is for you.
- Invoicing
- Construction and fit-out
Construction and fit-out work gets paid in pieces: a mobilisation deposit, then payments as stages complete, then a final balance that always takes longer than everyone expected. The invoicing is straightforward on paper and messy in practice, because the money arrives in irregular amounts from a client's finance department, often against no clear reference, while the person who knows what stage the job reached is on site rather than at a desk.
Where stage billing gets away from you
- The deposit is agreed verbally and the site opens before anything is invoiced
- Stage invoices are raised late, so the job is funding itself out of your working capital
- A client's payment arrives as a round figure that covers part of two invoices
- Nobody can say what a job has billed against what it has collected without rebuilding it from documents
Invoice the deposit before the site opens
Raise the mobilisation deposit as a branded invoice with a due date and a pay link, or as a public pay link for a one-off or open amount the client can settle without signing in to anything. Either way it is a real invoice on the record, with 16% VAT applied and shown correctly and a PDF receipt issued automatically the moment it is paid - which is what a client's finance team needs before releasing the next tranche.
Bill each stage as its own invoice
Each stage or certificate is its own invoice against the same customer: line items describing the work, the amount agreed for that stage, and a due date. They all sit against one customer balance, so at any point you can see what the job has billed, what has been collected and what is still out - without adding up documents.
Retention and agreed deductions are handled the way they are agreed: as clearly named lines on the invoice for the stage they apply to, so the client sees the arithmetic instead of querying a number that does not match the certificate.
Take the money on whichever rail the client uses
Small and mid-sized clients will pay the link - M-Pesa STK push or card, on their phone, in a minute. Corporate clients and financed projects pay by bank transfer, so your bank, paybill, till and cheque instructions are printed on every invoice, and when the transfer lands you upload the statement - CSV, Excel, or a PDF the bank emailed you, including scanned ones. Zana reads each transaction, proposes the invoice it settles, and posts only what you confirm.
A payment quoting the account reference clears the oldest invoice first and banks the remainder as credit against the next stage, which is exactly how an irregular round-figure payment should behave on a job that has three invoices open.
Chase without souring the relationship
Outstanding balances are aged 30, 60 and 90 days per client with a ranked list, so the conversation with a client who is two stages behind happens while the job is still on site rather than at handover. Automatic reminders cover the first polite follow-ups. Any client can be given a statement for any date range covering every stage billed and every payment received - which usually ends a dispute faster than a meeting.
Pay subcontractors from the same ledger
Supplier payouts send money to subcontractors, suppliers and site staff by mobile money or bank, with approvals and daily limits you control. Money coming in from the client and money going out to the trades sit in one workspace on one double-entry ledger, so job-by-job the numbers reconcile instead of being reassembled at the end.
What you’ll need
Recurring billing runs on every paid plan from Starter - KES 400/month for up to 100 billable accounts. Larger operations move up the tiers to Utility (7,500 accounts), and beyond that to Enterprise.
See every tierThe parts of Zana doing the work here
Run this on Zana
Set up in minutes — no card required — or book a walkthrough mapped to your billing cycle.