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Manage your mandates

Create or join your clients' companies, decide who pays for each module and switch between mandates from a single account.

Trustees11 min read
Table of contents+

A trustee account brings your clients' companies together in one place: the Mandates page lists them and a switcher lets you move from one to another. This guide follows the work of a firm, from opening the account to the end of a mandate.

1. Open a trustee account

Trustee mode is chosen at sign-up.

  1. Open the trustee sign-up, create your account and verify your email address.
  2. Enter your firm's name in Company name, then click Continue.
  3. At the question Do you manage other companies as a trustee?, select Yes, we are a trustee, then click Finish setup.

You land on the Dashboard, with no plan to choose and no credit card, and Mandates appears in the menu. The company you entered is your own company (My company), not a mandate: it is not billed on your trustee subscription and stays on Starter plan limits.

2. Read the Mandates page

The Mandates page, reserved for the holder of the trustee account, shows one card per company. There are two kinds:

  • a company you created belongs to you: you can archive or delete it;
  • an External mandate belongs to your client: you are an administrator there for as long as the mandate lasts.

The Status filter offers Active (current companies and pending requests), Requests (pending or closed access requests), Archived and All. On the card, the plan badge shows Free for Starter, Team or Business. Company data incomplete means that the full address or the canton is missing.

3. Add a mandate

  1. On the Mandates page, click Add a company. The + button at the top of the screen opens the same window, Add a mandate.
  2. In Company name, enter at least three characters of the name, or the full UID number.
  3. Choose a result. Bill Alps searches the commercial register and marks the companies that already have an account with the Bill Alps badge. If the company does not appear, keep the name you typed.

A company not yet on Bill Alps

  1. Under Who pays the subscription?, choose My firm or The client (see step 4).
  2. If your firm pays, select the Billed modules. All three are selected at the start and the Monthly total adjusts with each click.
  3. Click Create mandate.

The mandate becomes the active company and you land on its Dashboard. What remains is to complete its settings.

A company already on Bill Alps

The window shows Company already on Bill Alps. Click Request access: the owner and the administrators receive an email, and nothing is created or billed. The card moves to Pending. The request expires after 14 days; in the meantime, you can:

  • Resend the email, once every 24 hours: the new link replaces the old one and the 14-day period starts over;
  • Cancel the request.

You receive an email when the client responds. If they accept, the card moves to Accepted and you become an administrator of the company. A card marked Refused, Expired or Cancelled stays under Requests until you click Dismiss, and you can send a new request.

4. Choose who pays and for which modules

The payer is chosen mandate by mandate and can change in either direction.

  • My firm: the mandate is billed on your subscription, module by module. A billed module gets all Business features, an unbilled module stays on Starter plan limits.
  • The client: nothing on your subscription, and the mandate starts on Starter plan limits. An external mandate likewise keeps the plan and subscription of its owner.

If your firm pays and you have no active subscription, Create mandate opens Subscription required. Click Set up billing and pay online: the mandate is created once payment is set up. Only its name and modules are carried over: complete the UID and the address afterwards with Edit.

After that, each card offers, depending on the case:

  • Billed modules: change the modules you pay for, then click Save modules. At least one module must stay selected.
  • Take over billing: moves a mandate paid by the client onto your subscription. An active subscription is required: otherwise, first create a mandate billed by your firm.
  • Hand billing back: the mandate leaves your subscription and goes to Starter plan limits until the client subscribes. Its data stays intact.

5. Understand the pricing

The price is calculated separately for each module, according to the number of mandates you bill for that module, per mandate and per month, excluding VAT:

  • 1 to 9 mandates: CHF 7.00
  • 10 to 24 mandates: CHF 5.00
  • 25 to 49 mandates: CHF 4.00
  • 50 mandates and more: CHF 3.00

The rate of the tier applies to all the mandates of the module. For example, 12 mandates on Invoicing & quotes and 5 on Payroll cost 12 × CHF 5.00 + 5 × CHF 7.00, that is CHF 95.00 per month. One more mandate can lower the total: from 9 to 10 mandates, a module goes from CHF 63.00 to CHF 50.00. Archived mandates and your own company are not counted.

On billed modules, each mandate includes a volume per calendar month. Beyond that, nothing is blocked: the excess is added to the next invoice.

  • Payslips: 20 included, then CHF 2.00 per payslip
  • Supplier bill extractions: 200 included, then CHF 0.50 per extraction
  • AI prefills: 100 included, then CHF 0.20 per prefill
  • AI categorizations: 300 included, then CHF 0.10 per transaction

To follow your costs, switch back to your own company and open My accountTrustee offer: Monthly total, Detail per module, overages for the month. Manage subscription opens the Stripe payment portal and the Billing section lists your invoices. On the card of a billed mandate, Usage this month shows the consumption, for example 12/20.

6. Work inside a mandate

The company switcher, at the top of the screen (in the menu on mobile), appears as soon as you have access to two companies. It groups them under My company, Mandates (those you created) and Other (those where you are invited, including external mandates). Switching company takes you to its Dashboard. On a card, Open dashboard does the same and Edit opens its settings. The interface changes depending on the type of mandate:

  • In a company you created, the Settings group of the menu is reduced to a single entry named after the mandate and My account disappears. Modules and Members & access move to the General tab of that page. Preferences (currency, numbering) and API keys are not accessible.
  • In an external mandate, you see My company and My account like any administrator. Subscription and Billing there are the client's.
  • Your firm's My account, with Trustee offer, comes back when you switch back to your own company.

In Modules, billed modules are managed from the Mandates page, and the others can be turned on freely. Accounting stays off as long as it is neither billed nor selected here.

For a colleague, send an invitation from the mandate's Members & access, with permissions per module. A paid plan is required on that mandate, billed by you or by the client.

7. End a mandate

  • Archive (company created by you): the mandate leaves billing and the switcher, and its data is kept. Scheduled invoices, payslip delivery and the employee portal are paused. Restore, under Archived, bills it again with the same modules; recurring invoices resume at the next cycle, with no catch-up.
  • Remove (company created by you): enter the exact name, then Delete permanently. All data is erased, with no way back.
  • Leave the mandate (external mandate): your access disappears, and the data stays with the owner.

The client can also remove your access: Bill Alps does not send you an email and the card moves to Access removed under Requests. When an external mandate that you bill ends, your billing stops and the company goes back to Starter plan limits until its owner subscribes.

When a client receives your access request, pass on to them the guide Give your trustee access.