Most businesses follow a common procedure when sending out invoices, giving all their clients a common and consistent period within which to pay. For example, always 2 weeks.
Currently the Monzo business app sets the due date to… the day the invoice is created. A date no business is going to use.
Why isn’t there a setting within the app to set the due date to a useful period e.g to calculate and set a specific date ‘X days from invoice creation’?
Why am I having to scroll through and calculate 30 day periods for every invoice I make?
Almost nothing in this paid for app is automated. What’s going on?
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Well, the due date depends on your payment terms with the business right? Which, definitely for me anyway changes depending on what I’ve negotiated with that business.
Just writing ‘due in two weeks’ is a bit pointless, if you haven’t agreed payment terms with them is due in 30 days as per statutory payment terms, whatever is written on the invoice.
I’d think a default to 30 days would at least be sensible though. The ideal would be to set per client which is what most good business invoicing / accounting software does
Sure, I mean, whatever the specifics per business, every business does have specifics and common ways of working and these are things that are agreed with clients.
In the Tide business app I used to use it would auto generate a future due date based on preferences I had selected and in line with the commonalities of my business practice. It also gave me the option to change the due date on a case by case basis should there be an exceptional case.
Tide didn’t offer ‘per client’ options (which would be great) but at least it had a general one.
Honestly Starling is what I use for business and I wouldn’t consider switching to Monzo for a second so I don’t want to sound like I’m defending it. Are you saying you actually can’t change the due date on Monzo invoices though? That’s pretty bad if so.
I can also see how a default to the invoice generation date is pretty annoying UX even if it’s changeable.
For accounting stuff like making invoices I just use Quickbooks though, my bank account is just an account. I don’t really want a banking app that does 25% of my accounts for me, also if I didn’t use a desktop accounting app how would I justify expensing my gaming computer 
You can change the due date on Monzo, it’s just that it begins set as the day you create the invoice and there’s no option automate a more useful date e.g 30 days after invoice creation.
It’s only one ‘feature’ that lacks automation. So it’s not important individually. But I’m rapidly finding out literally nothing is automated within Monzo’s banking app.
Overall it’s no more automated than filling in a Google Sheets invoice template and writing my own email. Except I’m paying for the privilege.
Maybe I need to take another look at Starling despite the disruption caused by changing banks again.
Maybe look at just using the integration with something else like Quickbooks or Xero?
I do think you’ve probably discovered the account isn’t really built for businesses like yours, I get the impression the main use is like, contractors with 1-2 main clients or something. Starling is definitely a more mature product but it’s still not likely to cover all your needs I don’t think.
The only things I really need are:
- A customer database that I can reuse to populate invoices for regular customers
- A template email that’s ready to send (with invoice attached)
- The option to use my own reference number nomenclature
The accessible information prior to opening an account makes it appear the above things are either possible or inferred. And in 2022 I don’t think ‘put a reference number on an invoice’ is something I should have to double check.
Automatically linking a payment to an invoice is a nice feature but it’s not worth much if the actual invoice creation process isn’t streamlined.
If you don’t mind me asking, how does Starling do with this list of features?
Starling has all of those built in
I have been reluctant to use 3rd party software as it’s a relatively low key teaching business. I had hoped to keep the invoices streamlined, in-house in one banking app for ease. Though maybe I have to give up on that.
I certainly didn’t anticipate what seem like basic functions, like auto-populating some text (present in so many apps and software dating back to the 90s), to not be a standard part of a modern business banking app.
Ok. Thanks for letting me know. I’ll have to faff about and make the change over.
I certainly did read the available information on both Monzo and Starling before opting for Monzo. But it appeared to me that the differences were negligible.
Ah right. For current accounts maybe, for business accounts no Starling is miles ahead.
Thanks for the help. I appreciate it.
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