Your first invoice
An invoice is how you get paid. It goes out by email with a link the customer can pay from, it chases itself with reminders if you let it, and every payment lands in your books without a second entry.
Most first invoices come from an accepted estimate: open it and press Convert to Invoice. This page covers the invoice from scratch, and the two things that happen after sending.
Creating it
Invoices → New invoice
Click Invoices in the sidebar, then New invoice. It’s the same billing studio as estimates, with Invoice selected in the document-type toggle.
Customer, line items, due date
Pick the customer and add the lines, exactly as for an estimate. The Due Date defaults from your Net payment terms under Settings → Company → General → Defaults, and you can change it on this invoice alone.
Review & Send
The send drawer shows what’s going out. If Stripe is connected, the summary says a card and bank-transfer pay link is attached. Send now emails it and the status goes from Draft to Sent.
No Stripe yet? The invoice still sends. The customer just pays you another way and you record it by hand, below. Get paid online takes five minutes and is worth doing before the second invoice.
When the customer pays
Online. They open the link, pay by card or ACH bank transfer, and the invoice marks itself Paid. You get a notification; the payment shows under Payments on the invoice. Bank transfers take three to five business days to clear and show as in progress until they do.
Cash, check or a transfer outside the app. Open the invoice and press Record Payment: amount, date, method, and which account it was deposited to. A short payment leaves the invoice Partially Paid. Mark as Paid is the shortcut when the whole balance arrived at once.
Copy Payment Link on the invoice gives you the same pay link to text or paste anywhere.
The statuses
Draft, Sent, Viewed, Partially Paid, Paid, Overdue, Void and Written Off. Overdue happens on its own the day after the due date. Void cancels an invoice that was sent by mistake; Write Off gives up on a balance you won’t collect and records it as bad debt.
Reminders
Two automations exist from the start, switched off: Payment Reminder (7 days overdue) and Payment Reminder (30 days overdue). Turn them on under Settings → Operations → Workflows and overdue invoices chase themselves. A third, Auto-Invoice on Job Completion, creates the invoice the moment a crew finishes a job. See Automations.
Tips
- Invoice from the job, not from memory. A completed job carries its line items, crew notes and photos into the invoice.
- Batch the end of the month. Select several jobs or customers and send the invoices in one go from the send drawer’s batch mode.
- Deposits are their own invoice. An estimate with a deposit creates a deposit invoice on acceptance, and the final invoice credits it.
Troubleshooting
The customer says there’s no pay button. Online payment appears only when Stripe is connected and charges are enabled. Check Settings → Connect → Integrations.
I recorded a payment on the wrong invoice. Open the payment under Payments on that invoice and delete it, then record it on the right one.
Related
- Invoices for late fees, statements and batch invoicing
- Get paid online
- Automations