# Payment Requests

Do you often suffer from customers who do not pay and could you easily cancel the products or services for these customers? If so, you might use payment requests to get the customers to pay first before an invoice is issued. 

A payment request, unlike an invoice, is not recorded in the accounts, so you do not have to pay the VAT until the payment is made and the invoice is issued.

{% hint style="warning" %}
Attention: please note that if you want to take further steps to collect a payment request by force, it is **better to create an invoice** as legislation on invoicing is in most cases more detailed and documented.
{% endhint %}

## Activating Payment Requests

The document type 'Payment Requests' is something that first needs to be activated in BestInvoicing:

1. Navigate to the top right corner of the screen (email address) and select 'Apps and Integrations' in the menu.
2. Check the list of 'Apps and Integrations Related to Documents'.
3. Click the green button 'Activate' on the line mentioning 'Payment Requests'. 

As soon as this document type is activated, it can be used immediately. A new line 'Payment Requests' will appear in the general BestInvoicing menu to the left. 

## Creating Payment Requests

Creating a payment request follows the same scheme as an invoice, proposal, ... From the overview of payment requests, you can easily create a new request.

![](/files/5qfxTaB39W4t2tAObjbo)

## Application as Pro Forma Invoice

Another application of the payment requests document type is the possibility to use it as pro-forma invoice. Pro-forma invoices, like payment requests, do not contain a breakdown excl./incl. VAT on the document and can therefore be used for this purpose.

{% hint style="info" %}
The fixed document title "Payment Request" can be changed to "Pro Forma Invoice" on the PDF/print version of the document. This is done by editing the internal code of the template. Just send an email to <support@bestinvoicing.com> and we will change this.
{% endhint %}

## Transfer to Invoice

A payment request can be easily copied to an invoice. From the overview of payment requests you can select the document you want to transfer. Via the blue button 'Actions' you can see which possibilities there are; the bottom action is 'Copy to new invoice'.&#x20;

![](/files/4AvKai1ELGjYjuhAWH3x)

{% hint style="success" %}
If the invoice has already been paid because people have already paid via the payment request, you can indicate this, for example, in the [bottom text](/settings/default-values.md#default-bottom-texts-on-documents) on the invoice.
{% endhint %}


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