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Getting Started as Accounting

Available to: Accounting, Owner

This guide is for users with the Accounting role. Accounting users manage the financial side of Hardhat Flow — invoices, payments, and billing records.

The Accounting role covers the billing and payment side of every project. Accounting users can create and edit invoices, record client payments, and view job details to understand the work that generated a bill. This role is designed for bookkeepers, office managers, and finance staff who are responsible for receivables but are not involved in scoping or managing project work.

What Accounting Can Access

  • Invoices — create, edit, and view all invoices
  • Payments — record payments against any invoice
  • Invoice PDFs — generate and download PDFs for client delivery
  • Jobs — view all jobs (read-only) to understand project context
  • Jobs — full detail view, but cannot edit status, assign workers, or post updates
  • Clients — view client information linked to jobs and invoices
  • Bids — Accounting has no access to bids in any state
  • User management — only Owners can manage users
  • Job assignments — cannot assign or reassign Supervisors or Badge Workers

Accounting cannot create or edit bids.

Scope and pricing decisions belong to Project Managers and Owners. Accounting enters the workflow once a job is ready to invoice.

Daily Workflow

The Accounting workflow centers on the Invoices section and the Jobs list.

  1. Go to Jobs and filter by status Completed / Needs Invoice
  2. Open the job and review the details to confirm scope and client
  3. Click Create Invoice on the job detail page
  4. Fill in the invoice amount, line items, and due date
  5. Submit the invoice — status changes to Invoice Submitted
  6. Generate a PDF for client delivery if needed

One invoice per job.

Each job can have only one invoice. If you open a job that already has an invoice, you will not see a Create Invoice option. Record additional payments against the existing invoice instead.

  1. Go to Invoices and find the invoice with outstanding balance
  2. Click Record Payment
  3. Enter the payment amount, date, and method
  4. Save — the system updates the invoice balance automatically
  5. When the balance reaches zero, the invoice advances to Paid and the workflow is set to Workflow Complete automatically
  1. Open the Invoices list
  2. Filter by status Invoice Submitted or Partially Paid to see what is outstanding
  3. Use the due date column to identify overdue accounts
  4. Contact the Project Manager or Owner if you need background on a disputed invoice

Key Pages

Page What you do here
Invoices Create, view, and manage all invoices
Jobs View job details to support invoice creation
Activity Feed Review the history of a job or invoice

Invoice Statuses

Status Meaning Who sets it
Invoice Submitted Sent to client You or an Owner
Partially Paid One or more payments received, balance remains Auto-set on first payment
Paid Full balance received Auto-set when balance reaches zero
Workflow Complete Final system state Set automatically by system

You don't need to manually close out invoices.

Once the balance reaches zero, the system automatically advances the invoice to Paid and then to Workflow Complete. No manual action is needed.

Document Editor

As an Accounting user you can customize invoice document content before downloading the PDF.

Document Access
Invoice documents Edit, save, reset, download PDF
Bid documents Download PDF only (cannot edit)

To open the invoice editor, navigate to an invoice detail page and click Edit Document. Use the toolbar to adjust narrative, add payment instructions, or insert placeholder tokens that stay current with live invoice data.

See Document Editor for full details.