Invoices

Every invoice you raise lives in one place, so you can see at a glance what's been sent, what's been paid, and what's overdue. You can start an invoice from nothing or bring across the lines from a quote your client has already accepted, then record each payment as it arrives.

How to raise and pay off an invoice

1. Open Invoices and select New invoice.
2. Choose the client and, if you like, link it to a job. Both are optional at this point - you can set or change them later. Select Create draft to open the invoice.
3. Add your lines: for each one set a category (labour, material and so on), a description, quantity, unit and price. The running totals update as you go.
4. If the invoice is for an accepted quote, use the option to pull the quote's lines straight into the invoice instead of typing them out again.
5. Tick any tax options that apply - reverse charge VAT, CIS deduction, or retention - and the totals adjust automatically.
6. When you're happy with it, select Send invoice. This marks the invoice as sent and sets the issue and due dates.
7. As money arrives, select Record payment and enter the amount, the date, the method (such as bank transfer) and an optional reference.
8. Repeat the payment step for part-payments until the invoice is shown as fully paid.

Good to know

• Each invoice gets its own reference automatically, in the form INV-001, INV-002 and so on, kept in sequence.
• An invoice moves through Draft, Sent, Part-paid and Paid, and is flagged as Overdue automatically once its due date has passed with a balance still owing. It can be marked as Void, and reopened back to Draft if needed. The invoice list groups everything by status with a count for each.
• Every payment you record is added up: once the total paid covers the amount due the invoice flips to Paid, and if some has been paid but not all of it, it shows as Part-paid. The balance shown is simply the amount due minus what's been paid.
• VAT is added at the set rate unless you turn on reverse charge, where the customer accounts for the VAT instead. CIS, when switched on, is deducted from the labour lines only. Retention, when switched on, holds back a percentage of the net total. All three feed into the final amount due.
• The due date is worked out for you: it defaults to the issue date plus a payment term in days. If the client has their own default term set on their contact record, that's used; otherwise your workspace's default term applies (7 days out of the box). You can always override the due date on the invoice itself.
• If you don't type a reference on the invoice, it takes the job's client PO reference automatically - handy when you're starting from a quote that didn't have one.
• Once you've chosen a client, the Bill-to shows as a link straight to their contact record, with a Change option if you need to swap it. Starting an invoice from an accepted quote shows the job's accepted quotes straight away, so you don't need to search for it first.
• When you pull lines from an accepted quote, the client-facing line items come across at their sell prices, and any grouped or bundled items from the quote arrive as a single combined line. If the invoice wasn't already linked to that quote, the link is created automatically. You can still edit, add or delete lines afterwards.
• An invoice can be tied to both a job and a quote, and these links are shown on the invoice and in the list so you can trace the money back to the work.
• If your workspace is connected to Xero, each invoice is matched to the right Xero contact automatically using a stored link rather than matching by name, so Xero doesn't end up with duplicate contacts.
• Pushing an invoice to Xero carries across the correct VAT treatment: standard-rate invoices post with output VAT at your set rate, while reverse charge and zero-rated invoices post with no VAT, since the customer accounts for it themselves. Any CIS deduction or retention held back is added as its own line, so the total value in Xero always matches what your client sees on the invoice.
• Anyone in the office can build, send and record payments against an invoice. Voiding or deleting one is kept to a smaller group of trusted users.
• The Invoices list shows your total outstanding across all unpaid invoices, and warns you when any are overdue.