Finance
Retainer
Agree the work, take the money up front, draw it down line by line.
Retainer covers the whole life of a retainer agreement — building it from products or services held in a warehouse, tracking its status, taking partial or full payments against specific line items, and converting it into a sales invoice once it is complete. Each one carries its own subtotal, tax, total and outstanding balance, so the amount still available is never in doubt.
Inside Retainer
What you get when you switch it on.
Retainer creation
Select the customer, assign the dates, choose the warehouse and add the products or services the retainer covers — as many items as the agreement needs.
Warehouse and product setup
Retainers draw on products and services held against a warehouse, so what is being committed to is the same catalogue the rest of the business trades on.
Line item pricing
Each item carries its own quantity, unit price, discount and tax, so a mixed agreement is priced accurately rather than reduced to a single lump figure.
Auto-numbering and drafts
Every retainer is numbered automatically and starts in draft, where it can still be updated or deleted before it goes to the customer.
Financial summary
Subtotal, tax, total amount and outstanding balance are shown on the retainer, alongside its progress, so the position is readable without adding anything up.
Payments and allocation
Record partial or full payments against a retainer and allocate the amounts to specific line items, moving its status to partial or paid as it is drawn down.
Conversion to sales invoice
Once a retainer is complete it converts into a sales invoice, so the agreement ends as a normal billing document rather than a loose end.
Inside the screens
What Retainer looks like day to day.
Placeholder imageWhere it earns its place
What teams switch Retainer on for.
01
Professional services on account
A client pays up front for an agreed block of work, and each payment is allocated against the items it covers as the work is delivered.
02
Mixed product and service agreements
Line-level quantities, discounts and taxes mean a retainer covering both goods and services prices correctly instead of being flattened into one figure.
03
Knowing what is left
The financial summary shows total and outstanding balance on the retainer itself, so both sides can see how much of the agreement remains.
Features
Everything in Retainer.
- Retainers for products or services
- Customer, date and warehouse selection
- Multiple line items per retainer
- Quantities, unit prices, discounts and taxes per item
- Automatic retainer numbering
- Draft status with edit and delete before sending
- Subtotal, tax and total summary
- Outstanding balance tracking
- Partial and full payment recording
- Payment allocation to specific line items
- Partial and paid status updates
- Conversion of completed retainers into sales invoices
How add-ons work
Retainer is not a separate app.
It runs inside GetBizApps Suite, on the same data, behind the same login.
01
Switch it on
Enable the add-on from your workspace. It appears alongside everything else already running — no separate install, no second login.
02
It shares your data
The add-on reads and writes the same customers, staff and records as the rest of the Suite, so nothing has to be re-keyed or synced.
03
Your roles still apply
Existing permissions carry across. Decide which teams see the add-on, and what they are allowed to do inside it.
04
Your price adjusts
It joins your subscription as one more enabled add-on, and comes off again if you turn it back off.
See what Retainer costs alongside the rest of your setup.
Build your priceWhat teams say
Why teams run on GetBizApps Suite.
These are customers talking about the Suite as a whole rather than the Retainer add-on specifically — every add-on runs on the same platform they are describing.
Didn’t expect one business suite to replace our CRM + HR + project tracker + invoicing setup. GBA Suites is surprisingly flexible once you start adding the modules you actually need.
We added the Support Ticket module after using GBA Suites for sales and invoicing. Having customer issues linked back to the same business data has made support much easier to manage.
The biggest advantage for us is that we didn’t have to change our entire process. We enabled the modules we needed and gradually moved more departments into GBA Suites.
Where it is used
Often switched on together
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ViewFAQ
Retainer questions.
What people ask before switching this one on.
A retainer is created against a customer with assigned dates and a warehouse, and holds the products or services it covers as line items with their quantities, unit prices, discounts and taxes. The record then shows a subtotal, tax, total amount and outstanding balance alongside the customer details and current status.
You select the customer and the associated retainer, then record a partial or full payment and allocate the amount to specific line items. The retainer's status updates to partial or paid accordingly, and its payment allocations and outstanding amount are visible on the record.
Yes, while it is still a draft. Retainers are auto-numbered and start in draft status, where they can be updated or deleted before being sent to the customer. Once complete, a retainer can be converted into a sales invoice.
A retainer is a single agreement for a defined set of products or services, paid in part or in full up front and drawn down through payment allocations until it is converted into a sales invoice. Recurring Invoices & Bills does something different: it repeats a sales or purchase invoice on a schedule you set, generating a fresh document every cycle. One is an advance arrangement, the other is repeat billing.
Retainer is a GetBizApps Suite add-on that manages the creation, tracking and payment of retainers for products or services. A retainer is built by selecting a customer, dates, a warehouse and the items it covers with their pricing, quantities, discounts and taxes; it starts as a draft, moves to partial or paid as payments are recorded and allocated to line items, and can be converted into a sales invoice once complete. It is available at https://getbizapps.com/addons/retainer.
Retainer is billed as one of the add-ons in your GetBizApps Suite subscription. Your total is built from the add-ons you switch on, your number of users and the duration you commit to, in USD or INR. You can model it on the pricing page at https://getbizapps.com/pricing.
Retainer runs inside GetBizApps Suite, so you need the Suite itself. There is no separate installation or login — enable the add-on and it appears alongside everything else you are already running, on the same data and the same permissions.
Yes. Add-ons can be switched on and off as your needs change, and your subscription adjusts to match what is currently enabled.
See Retainer on your own data.
Book a walkthrough and we will show you this add-on in context, alongside the others your business would actually use.