Question handling
Answering invoice requests when you cannot see the account
Billing questions look like the most automatable thing in support and are close to the opposite. Almost every one of them is about a specific document belonging to a specific account, which is exactly what an assistant answering from published material cannot reach. What it can do is explain the process precisely and collect a request that arrives complete.
What they are really asking
I need a specific document, addressed a specific way, and I need to know who can produce it and how long that takes.
- can i get a copy of my invoice
- can you add our vat number to the invoice
- the invoice has the wrong company name
- can you invoice us instead of taking card
- what are your payment terms
- can we add a purchase order number
- who do i send remittance to
- can i get a receipt for this payment
- do you send invoices automatically
- can the invoice be addressed to our finance team
The material that answers it
An assistant is only as good as the document behind it, and for this question the document usually exists but is written in the wrong shape. What each one has to contain to be answerable:
| Your billing facts that never change | Registered company name, registered address, tax registration number, bank details for payment where you publish them, and the currency you invoice in. These are stable, they are asked constantly by other businesses, and they are answerable without seeing anybody's account. |
|---|---|
| Payment terms as written on the invoice | Days from invoice date, what counts as paid, any late payment terms, and whether terms differ for a new account. Index the exact wording that appears on the document, not a friendlier version of it, because the exact wording is what a finance team is checking against. |
| How to change invoice details | Who can request a change, what has to be supplied, whether a reissue is possible after payment, and whether a credit note is the mechanism instead. Most of the questions in this family are really this question. |
| How invoices are delivered and where copies live | Emailed on the day, available in an account area, sent monthly in arrears. If a customer can retrieve their own copies, saying where is the single most useful answer here, because it resolves the request without anybody touching it. |
| What you can and cannot do on purchase orders | Whether you accept a purchase order reference, whether one is required before work starts, where it appears on the document, and what happens if it arrives after invoicing. Businesses buying from you will ask before they can raise anything internally. |
How to handle it
Sort every message into process or account
Process questions are answerable: what your terms are, what your tax number is, how a purchase order reference is added, when invoices go out. Account questions are not: where my invoice is, why this one says the wrong amount, whether you received our payment.
The split is clean and it should be the first thing the material supports. Nearly every complaint in this family comes from an account question that got a process answer and sounded like it had been checked.
Answer the fixed facts fully and without hedging
A finance team asking for your registered entity name and tax number is doing a task, not making an enquiry. Giving them the whole set in one reply, with the citation, ends the interaction.
This is the highest value thing in this intent and the easiest to index, because it is one short document that changes almost never.
Explain the change process, then take the request
For anything account specific, the correct shape is: here is how a change of this kind is handled, here is what the team will need from you, and here is the form. When somebody asks for a person the assistant offers it and collects a name, an email and a message.
Tell them what to include: the invoice number, the account the invoice belongs to, and exactly what should change. A billing request that arrives with those is resolved once instead of after a round trip.
Never read anything back that identifies an account
The assistant has no access to your billing records and must not behave as though it might. It should not confirm that an account exists, that an invoice was issued, that a payment arrived, or that a named company is a customer, because whoever is typing has not proved they are entitled to any of that.
The line is the same one used everywhere else in this cluster: if the answer would be identical for everyone who asked, it can be given. If it depends on who is asking, it cannot.
When it stops being an answer
Every request for a specific document
A copy invoice, a statement, a receipt, a credit note. Each of these is a document belonging to one account, and the only correct behaviour is to explain how it is obtained and take the request. Anything that implies the assistant has located it is a fabrication with an audit trail.
Changing who an invoice is addressed to
Reissuing to a different legal entity is not an administrative tidy up. It can affect what has been recorded as sold and to whom, and in many places it interacts with tax reporting. It needs a person who understands the rules where you trade.
Anything disputed
We were charged twice, this amount is wrong, we never agreed this rate. These carry a deadline somewhere, either a payment term running down or a dispute window, and they need to be in front of somebody quickly with the invoice number captured.
How this one goes wrong
The invoice question that turned into a disclosure
Somebody types a company name and asks for a copy of last month's invoice. If any of your indexed material happens to contain a real customer's details, a sample invoice or a case study with figures in it, the assistant can match against it and produce something that looks like the answer.
That is a data problem, not a support problem, and it starts in the index rather than in the model. Audit what you upload for real customer information before it goes anywhere near a public widget, and keep the billing material to the facts that are true for every customer you have.
The same question, trade by trade
The pattern above holds everywhere. The wording, the escalation line and the material behind it do not, so there is a page per trade.
- For a medical practiceA surgery bills insurers, solicitors and employers more often than patients. Who the payer is, and why the invoice arrives weeks later.
- For a veterinary clinicWhat an insurer reads on a vet invoice, why a claim form is written from the clinical record, and how a hospital stay is billed.
- For a physiotherapy clinicThe document an insurer needs, the receipt that must carry a registration number, and moving from insured to self pay.
- For a opticianEmployer screen schemes pay for part of a pair, so the paperwork has to split the bill. What an optician can issue.
- For a pharmacyA till receipt, a private prescription receipt and a monthly account are different documents, and only staff can reissue any of them.
- For a law firmTime units, the narrative, disbursements sitting apart from the fee, and why none of it can be checked against a live matter.
- For a accounting firmAdditional fee queries answered from the engagement terms: what triggered a charge, when the practice invoices, and where the query goes next.
- For a insurance brokerHow instalment arrangements work, what a broker fee covers and why a missed payment is not just a billing problem but a cover problem.
- For a mortgage brokerA fee falling due when the offer is issued, and a procuration fee the lender pays on completion which has to be disclosed but is never billed.
- For a estate agencyA rent statement is a record of deductions, and the seller's commission invoice is usually settled by a conveyancer out of the sale.
- For a recruitment agencyTimesheet driven invoices, permanent fee triggers and rebate conditions. The client side billing questions with fixed, publishable answers.
- For a marketing agencyPass through spend, the hours allowance and the out of scope line. What a client is really disputing when they query an agency invoice.
- For a online storeA confirmation email is not a tax invoice. The company details an accountant needs had to be captured at checkout and usually were not.
- For a fashion retailerThe commonest paperwork request here is for a document with the price taken off, and it has to be decided before the parcel is packed.
- For a furniture retailerIt carries the cloth code, the size and the handedness. Reading it in the first days is worth more than any invoice months later.
- For a electronics retailerAn asset register wants a serial per machine and a maker claim wants a dated proof of purchase. Cover bought at the till is billed elsewhere.
- For a garden centreTrade buyers rebill every plant to a client, so an invoice needs pot sizes, quantities and an order number, not a till receipt.
- For a bike shopThe document usually wanted is proof of purchase for a frame claim years later. Plus job sheets, and scheme paperwork nobody receives.
- For a restaurantA card slip is not a VAT invoice. What a company diner needs on it, and why the service line has to be shown separately.
- For a hotelFinance wants the company name on it and the tax on its own line, and the desk can only invoice for money the hotel actually took.
- For a holiday rentalA company paying for a cottage needs a proper receipt with the right name on it, and every guest needs to know when the balance falls due.
- For a gymWhy the first payment was bigger, when the collection date falls and what happens after a failed one. All policy, no account data.
- For a salon or spaThe voucher is the commonest billing question a salon gets, and balances and expiry sit in a record only the salon can open.
- For a universityTuition and hall rent are separate schedules with separate offices, and a sponsor is invoiced against a letter. None of it needs an account opened.
- For a private schoolTermly billing, extras, sibling discounts and payment plans are publishable. A specific family account is not, and never becomes so.
- For a driving schoolThe commonest billing question at a driving school is how many hours are left, and that number lives on the instructor's own record card.
- For a online courseA learner paid, then finance wants a document with the company name and number on it. What can be changed after checkout and what cannot.
- For a plumbing and heating firmLabour, parts and the call out charge are separate lines, and a landlord gas safety record is not the same document as the bill.
- For a electrical contractorThe tenant let you in, the agent instructed the job and the landlord pays. The invoice and the report go to different people.
- For a removals companyThe balance is normally cleared before the van is unloaded. Anything counted on the day, waiting time or extra materials, invoices later.
- For a car dealershipA sales invoice, a service bill and the registration document are three different pieces of paper, and customers ask for all three using one word.
- For a SaaS companyProration, tax numbers and missing invoices arrive constantly. What the assistant explains from policy, and the point where it takes a name.
- For a developer tools companyReconciling a usage counter against a line item, spikes with a timestamp behind them, and the purchase order details a finance team blocks on.
- For a fintech appStatements, fee breakdowns and tax paperwork on a money app. What the schedule explains, and why no charge on an account can be read.
- For a healthtech appThe receipt someone claims back on, the invoice that goes to an employer, and why neither of them should state a clinical reason.
Questions
- Can it send somebody their invoice?
- No. It reads documents you index and does not write into or read from any billing system. It can explain where copies are kept, what the team needs to send one, and take a request with a name, an email and a message.
- Is any of this worth automating then?
- The fixed facts are, and they carry real volume. Payment terms, tax registration details, registered address, purchase order handling and where invoices are delivered from account for a lot of inbound finance email, and none of them need anybody to look anything up.
- How do we avoid it guessing at payment terms?
- Index the exact wording from the invoice template and keep looser paraphrases out of the material. Answers cite the passage they came from, so if the assistant quotes something you did not expect, you can see which document to fix.
Keep reading
- Handling refund requestsA refund question is really about eligibility and timing. What to index, what the reply may promise, and where it has to reach a person.
- Handling cancellationsCancellation content is hard to find on purpose. What it costs to answer plainly, how notice periods work, and what happens to data on the way out.
- Handling pricing questionsPublished price versus the price for this buyer. Bands, ranges and from pricing, and why a firm number for unscoped work is the damaging failure.
- Every question typeHandling patterns for the questions every support inbox gets.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.