Invoices
Invoices are how you get paid. They go out with a pay link, chase themselves with reminders, record their own online payments, and post to the books as they happen. Invoices are on every plan; the automatic payment reminders are Starter and up, and online payment needs Stripe connected.
At a glance
- Make one: Invoices → New invoice, Convert to Invoice on an estimate, or Generate invoice on a completed job.
- Send it: Review & Send, then Send now.
- Statuses: Draft, Sent, Viewed, Partially Paid, Paid, Overdue, Void, Written Off.
- Money in: online through the link, or Record Payment.
- Many at once: Bulk Create from completed jobs; the Statements tab for customers with open balances.
- On a schedule: the Recurring tab. A template bills on its own, reminds you, or waits for you to use it.
Creating one
Invoices → New invoice is the billing studio with Invoice selected. Customer, lines from the catalog, Issue Date and Due Date. The due date defaults from your Net payment terms under Settings → Company → General, Defaults tab.
Most invoices shouldn’t start blank. Convert to Invoice on an accepted estimate and Generate invoice on a completed job both carry the lines across; a contract with billing set up makes its own on schedule.
Sending
The send drawer has the options that decide what the customer can do:
- Online payment link: a Pay-online button in the email. Most people pay the same day.
- Attach PDF: a copy attached to the email.
- Auto-reminders: nudges if it goes unpaid, at the days after due set in your reminder settings.
- Schedule for later: send at a set time.
Send now emails it. Delivered on paper? Mark as Sent from the list.
The statuses
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Draft | Not sent |
| Sent / Viewed | Out; opened |
| Partially Paid | Some of the balance in |
| Paid | Balance is zero |
| Overdue | Past the due date, unpaid; automatic |
| Void | Cancelled; it no longer counts |
| Written Off | Balance given up as bad debt |
Payments
Online. The customer pays from the link or the portal by card or ACH bank transfer. The invoice updates itself; the payment appears under Payments on the invoice with the method. Bank transfers show as in progress for three to five business days. The pay link is valid for 90 days and is re-issued when you resend; Copy Payment Link gives you the current one.
By hand. Record Payment: Payment Amount, Payment Date, Method (cash, check, bank transfer and so on), a Reference such as the check number, and Deposit to, the bank account it went into. That last field is what keeps the books right.
Refunds. On an online payment, Process Refund returns part or all of it through Stripe. A refund takes the sale back: the invoice stays paid with nothing owed, and the refunded amount comes off your revenue and sales tax. If the customer tipped, you can refund the tip on its own. Refunds recorded before October 2026 reopened the invoice instead, and they stay as they were.
Tips. With Ask customers for a tip switched on under Settings → Connect → Integrations, a tip line appears on the pay page. Tips are recorded apart from the invoice balance.
Late fees and reminders
Reminders are automations. Payment Reminder (7 days overdue) and Payment Reminder (30 days overdue) exist from day one, switched off, under Settings → Operations → Workflows. The invoice page shows how many reminders went out and when. Late fees, when a late fee rule is on, are added to the overdue balance and shown as Late Fee Applied on the invoice. See Automations.
Batch invoicing and statements
Bulk Create on the invoice list takes every completed job that hasn’t been invoiced, lets you Group by customer, and creates the invoices in one go with a shared due date. Then select them and Send from the list in one batch.
The Statements tab shows one page per customer with an open balance: what’s open, what’s aged, and how to pay. Select customers and send statements in bulk. Statements reflect current balances; there’s no backdated statement yet.
Recurring invoices
The Recurring tab on the invoice list holds templates, the way QuickBooks keeps recurring transactions. New template is an invoice you fill in once - customer, lines, notes - plus a type and a schedule:
- Scheduled creates the invoice on its schedule with nobody touching it. Switch on Send automatically and it emails the customer too; leave it off and the invoice waits as a draft.
- Reminder puts the invoice on the Reminders list at the top of the tab when its date comes. Create invoice makes it with one click; Skip moves on to the next date.
- Unscheduled is a saved invoice with no dates. Create an invoice now from its menu whenever you need one.
The schedule is as flexible as the calendar: daily, weekly on a weekday, monthly on a day or on the first, second, third, fourth or last weekday, or yearly on a date; every one, two or more; starting on a date and ending never, on a date or after a number of invoices. Create in advance makes a scheduled invoice a few days before its date so it goes out on time.
Include unbilled jobs adds the customer’s completed, uninvoiced jobs as extra lines each time, up to fifty per invoice - a monthly plan plus whatever extra visits that month had. Each template can carry its own payment terms; otherwise the customer’s terms apply, then your workspace default.
From a template’s menu: Pause and Resume, Skip next date, Duplicate (the copy starts paused), and Delete, which leaves every invoice it already created where it is. On an invoice, Make recurring starts a template from that invoice’s lines. A contract with billing set up has made a template of its own all along; Manage schedule on the contract opens it here.
A scheduled invoice that is created days late - after an outage, or when you resume a paused template - stays a draft rather than being emailed. Anything older than a week waits for you to send it.
Credit, void, write off, duplicate
Credit records a credit note against an open invoice - a partial make-good for work that fell short - so the customer owes less by that amount and no money moves; revenue and its tax share are reversed in the books, the credit shows on the invoice and the customer statement, and it reaches QuickBooks as a credit memo applied to the invoice. Void cancels an invoice that shouldn’t exist; nothing about it counts any more. Write Off records the remaining balance as bad debt and stops it counting toward receivables; recovering it later takes a journal entry. Duplicate copies an invoice as a new draft.
QuickBooks
With QuickBooks connected, invoices and payments sync on the schedule you set. An invoice edited after it synced is pushed again.
Tips
- Invoice from the job. It carries the materials, notes and photos.
- Deposit to is not optional in spirit. A payment with no account lands in cash on hand and someone reconciles it later.
- Statements at month end, reminders in between. The reminders handle the single invoice; the statement handles the customer with four.
Troubleshooting
No pay button in the customer’s email. Stripe isn’t connected or charges aren’t enabled. See Get paid online.
The invoice says Overdue but they paid by check. Record the payment with its date; the status recalculates.
I need to change an invoice that was paid. Don’t edit it. Issue a credit or a new invoice; the paid one is a record.