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Creating and Sending Invoices

Available to: Owner, Accounting

Project Managers, Supervisors, and Badge Workers cannot create invoices. PMs can see invoice status on jobs they manage, but cannot create or edit invoices.

Once a job reaches Completed / Needs Invoice status, the billing process begins. An Owner or Accounting user creates a single invoice against the completed job.

When to Create an Invoice

Job must be at 'Completed / Needs Invoice'

Invoices can only be created against jobs that have been marked complete by the PM. If a job is still In Progress or Ready to Start, the invoice creation option will not be available.

Navigate to the job in Jobs to initiate invoicing — the Create Invoice section appears automatically once a PM marks the job complete.

One Invoice Per Job

One invoice per job — enforced by the system

Each job can have exactly one invoice. The system prevents creating a second invoice against a job that already has one. If payment adjustments are needed, use partial payments against the existing invoice — do not attempt to create a new one.

Creating an Invoice

  1. Open the completed job in Jobs (status: Completed / Needs Invoice).
  2. A Create Invoice section appears on the job detail page (visible to Owner and Accounting only).
  3. Confirm the Subtotal — pre-filled from the job's bid price, editable if needed.
  4. Set the Due Date.
  5. Click Create Invoice.
  6. The system generates the invoice number, applies tax from company settings, and redirects to the new invoice.
  7. The invoice status is set to Invoice Submitted.

Invoice Fields

Field Description
Invoice Number Auto-generated from timestamp. Format: INV-YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS (e.g., INV-20240415-143022). Not editable.
Job Reference Linked job. Pre-populated and read-only.
Client Pulled from the linked job/bid.
Invoice Date Date the invoice is issued. Defaults to today.
Due Date Payment due date. Calculated from company payment terms, or set manually.
Payment Terms Pulled from Company Settings (e.g., Net 30). Displayed on the invoice PDF.
Line Items Description and amount of work performed. Pre-populated from bid scope and price.
Subtotal Sum of line items before tax.
Tax Rate Pulled automatically from CompanySettings.default_tax_rate. Applied only if the job was marked taxable on the bid.
Total Subtotal + tax.
Notes Optional internal or client-facing notes.

Verify the tax rate before saving

The tax rate is pulled from company settings at the time of invoice creation. If your default tax rate has recently changed, verify it reflects the correct rate before submitting.

Generating an Invoice PDF

A formatted invoice PDF can be generated at any time after the invoice is created.

  1. Open the invoice from Invoices.
  2. Click Download PDF or Generate PDF.
  3. The system renders the invoice using WeasyPrint with your company branding and payment terms.
  4. Send the PDF to the client via email or your preferred method.

PDF reflects the invoice at the time of generation

The PDF is generated on demand. If you update notes or other editable fields after generation, regenerate the PDF before sending.

Editing an Invoice Document

You can customize invoice content before sending the PDF to a client.

Accessing the Editor

  1. Open the invoice from Invoices.
  2. Click Edit Document on the invoice detail page.
  3. The editor opens with the current document content pre-loaded.

Typical Editing Flow

Navigate to the invoice detail page and click Edit Document. The editor loads the auto-generated content as a starting point.

Use the toolbar to format text, adjust line items narrative, add payment instructions, or insert your company's standard terms. Use placeholder tokens from the Insert Token dropdown to keep totals, due dates, and client names live and accurate.

Click Save to persist your edits. A Customized badge appears on the invoice detail page.

Click Download PDF on the invoice detail page. Placeholder tokens resolve to live values at render time.

Placeholder Tokens

Tokens such as {{invoice_total}}, {{invoice_due_date}}, and {{client_name}} pull live data at PDF render time. This means the PDF always reflects the current invoice values even if you generated the document before the invoice was finalized.

Reset to Template

Click Reset to Template to discard custom edits and return to the auto-generated invoice layout.

Invoice PDF is now available

Invoice PDF download is available from the Download PDF button on the invoice detail page. Both custom and auto-generated invoices can be downloaded.

Who can edit invoice documents?

Only Owners and Accounting users can open the invoice document editor.

See Document Editor for a full reference.

Invoice Status: Invoice Submitted

All newly created invoices start at Invoice Submitted. This indicates the invoice has been created and is awaiting payment.

From Invoice Submitted, the workflow continues when payments are recorded. See Recording Payments for the full payment lifecycle.