Offers & invoices

A paid plan starts with an offer, not with a checkout. dembrane sends the offer to your organisation in the dashboard. You sign it there, fill in your billing details, and the invoice follows.

Organisation admins and people with the organisation Billing role see all of this. Other members read: “Only the organisation’s admins and billing contacts see this page.”

Where things are#

Once dembrane has sent your organisation a task or a document, the organisation sidebar gets two more entries: “Tasks” and “Documents”.

If you belong to more than one organisation, a “Tasks” page shows one card for each: “What each of your organisations still has to do for dembrane.” A prompt points you to open tasks: “You have {n} thing(s) to do in {name}”, with “Go to your tasks” and “Later”.

How an offer reaches you#

You tell dembrane what you need and book a call. See how you get a paid plan. After that, dembrane sends the offer. Every organisation admin and Billing member gets the email “Your offer from dembrane is ready to sign”.

• An offer is for a year (“Yearly license offer”), for one event (“Event offer”), or made to measure.
• It is written in English or Dutch.
• It is valid for 14 days from its date. After that it cannot be signed.
• It fixes the versions of the terms, the service level agreement and the data processing agreement that were in force when it was sent. An event offer has no service level agreement.
• A sent offer is never edited. If something has to change, dembrane sends a new offer and the old one shows as “Withdrawn”.

The tasks that come with an offer#

1. “Tell us who signs the offer” (“3 questions”). Who signs the offer, who signs the data processing agreement (“The same person who signs the offer”, “I do” or “Someone else”), and “Do you need your own data protection impact assessment (DPIA)?” The form adds: “To change these answers later, ask us a question.”
2. “Review and sign the offer”.
3. “Sign the data processing agreement”. This is its own document, sent with the offer.
4. “Fill in billing details”. This one stays locked until an offer is signed: “Opens after you sign {title}”. If your organisation already gave complete details, you are not asked again.

dembrane can also give you a task to reply to (“Reply”) or to send a file (“Upload”, at most 20 MB). A task is “Open”, “Sent back”, “Locked”, “Waiting on dembrane”, “Done” or “Withdrawn”.

Sign a document#

Any organisation admin or Billing member can sign, unless one person is named to sign. Then only that person can.

1. Open the document from “To do” or “Tasks”.
2. Fill in the fields on the PDF. The screen counts them: “{done} of {total} filled”. Every required field must be filled.
3. Add your signature with “Draw”, “Type” or “Upload”.
4. Sign. The screen says: “By selecting Sign, you sign electronically. Your electronic signature is as binding as one made by hand.”

You need a verified email address to sign. The signed PDF carries your answers, your signature and an added page with the signing record. You find it under “Documents”: “Open the signed PDF”.

When an offer is signed, the tasks that were locked open.

Let someone else sign#

Choose “Send to someone else” and give their email address, their name and, if you like, their job title.

• They get the email “{inviter_name} asked you to sign {document_title}” with a link.
• They sign in with a six-digit code sent to that address. They need no password, and they reach that one document and nothing else. Their screen says “{inviter} from {org} invited you to sign”.
• “Remind {name}” sends the link again, once a day at most.
• If you name a different person, the first person’s link stops working.
• When they sign, they join your organisation with the Billing role.

Billing details#

“Billing details” is “What we put on your invoices.” Start with “Country”: it decides which numbers the form asks for. Then fill in:

• “Legal name of your organisation” and “Invoice email”
• Your address, “Postal code” and “City”
• In an EU country: your “VAT number”. If you have none, tick “We have no VAT number”. The Netherlands then asks for your “KvK number” and Belgium for your “KBO number”.
• Outside the EU: “VAT or tax number” (“If you have one”)
• “How do you want to get invoices?”: “By email”, “Through Peppol” or “Another way”
• “PO number” (“If your finance team uses one”)

Under each number the form shows how it should look, such as “For example NL123456789B01”. It checks the shape of the number when you save. It does not check that the number exists.

Saving the form finishes the task at once. Nobody at dembrane has to approve it.

“Through Peppol” is chosen for you when your organisation is found in the Peppol directory by its VAT, KvK or KBO number: invoices then arrive in your accounting software. If you are not found, choose it yourself and give your “Peppol ID”. Once saved, a Peppol customer can still switch with “Send by email instead”.

Do you get invoices some other way, such as through an invoice portal? Choose “Another way” and “Tell us how your organisation receives invoices”. Saving sends this to dembrane as a question, and “We will set it up with you.” Our answer appears under “Talk to us” on the “Overview” page.

The invoice#

dembrane is asked for your invoice once two things are true: an offer with an amount is signed, and your billing details are complete. The order does not matter.

The invoice is made and sent by dembrane’s accounting system. A copy with its PDF then appears under “Documents” and in “To do”, as “Pay invoice {number}”.

• “Pay online” is there when the invoice has a payment link.
• “By bank transfer” is always there, with “Amount”, “To” and “Reference”: “Put the reference on the transfer so we can match your payment.”
• “Download the invoice as PDF” gives you the file.

An invoice is “To pay”, “Overdue”, “Paid” or “Cancelled”.

If dembrane made a demo for you#

Before an offer, dembrane can prepare a demo project for your organisation. The conversations in it are fictional. If dembrane set the demo up with sign-in, you get the email “Your dembrane account for {org_name}” and sign in with a code.

Under “Get started” you then find optional tasks. Each one is ticked off when you do the step: “Check out the demo we made for you”, “Watch the tutorial”, “Create a project” and “Book a call with us”. When dembrane sends you an offer, the ones you have not done are withdrawn. An organisation that signed up by itself does not get these tasks, unless dembrane adds them.

Talk to us#

“Talk to us” on the “Overview” page has three options:

• “Give feedback”
• “Ask a question”: “Our answer appears here, on this page.” A question is “Open”, “Answered”, “Waiting on dembrane” or “Closed”.
• “Book a call”: “Pick a time that suits you.”

Emails#

An open task does not send reminders by itself. The invoice email comes from dembrane’s accounting system, not from the dashboard.

Related#

• Tiers & billing: plans, seats and how you get a paid plan.
• Roles & permissions: who can see offers and invoices.
• Data ownership & compliance: the data processing agreement in context.
• Notifications: the other emails dembrane sends.
• Tiers, billing and usage for hosts: the same, as a host.