How do invoices work?
Most of your invoices create themselves — a quote is accepted and the invoice exists, emailed, pay link and all. The Invoices page is where you see them, build the odd one by hand, record offline money, and chase what’s overdue.
Where invoices come from
Three sources, and the list shows which: From quote (created at acceptance and emailed automatically), Manual (built by hand), and Recurring (generated from monthly plans). Statuses run Draft → Sent → Paid, with Partial, Overdue, and Void covering the rest of real life.
Building one by hand
+ New invoice takes a customer, a due date, and line items — description, quantity, unit price, an optional per-line discount. Tax you never enter: your tax rates apply on their own based on how the customer pays. It lands as a draft; nothing is emailed until you say so.
Send it — the email carries a durable pay link
Send invoice emails the customer a pay link that works without any portal sign-in — card checkout if you’ve connected Stripe, or your payment instructions for cash, e-transfer, and cheque. The link tracks the outstanding balance, so it survives partial payments. Signed-in customers also see everything under Invoices in their portal.
Record offline payments
Cash in hand? Record payment takes the method (cash, e-Transfer, or cheque — card only ever arrives through the online checkout), the amount (pre-filled to the balance; type less and the invoice goes Partial), and an optional reference. Every payment and send lands on the invoice’s timeline.
Mistakes get voided, not edited
Drafts can be edited; a sent invoice can’t be reshaped — that’s deliberate, it was a real bill someone saw. Void it with a reason and issue a fresh one. Voiding a paid invoice re-opens the balance on the account, so the warning there is worth reading twice.
Keeping on top of the pile
Filter by status, customer, or date; the Bulk actions menu generates this month’s recurring invoices, sends overdue reminders on your cadence, and sweeps statuses to Overdue. All three run in the background and report when done.
Season-attributed invoices are what flip your season cells — that story is in “How do season payments and overrides work?”. Tax on invoices follows your per-method rates: “How is tax handled on quotes and invoices?”.