Quotations and invoices

Sales -> Quotations and Sales -> Invoices are for work you price yourself: a website build, a consulting retainer, a custom training. Your shop's orders get their invoices on their own (see Sales, refunds and invoices).

Team members need the Quotations & invoices permission (Team -> Roles). Owner and Admin have it.

Before you start

Open Settings -> Tax & invoices once:

• Business name, address and tax number are printed on every quotation and invoice. Your logo comes from Appearance (PNG or JPEG shows on the PDF).
• Quotation number prefix (default QUO-). Quotations are numbered QUO-00001, QUO-00002, ...
• Invoice number prefix is shared with your shop's order invoices, so your invoices form one unbroken series.
• Quotations are valid for and Invoices are due after set the dates on new documents.
• Default notes (your bank details are a good fit) and default terms are filled in on every new document. You can change them on each one. Add each term with + Add line (or press Enter in a term): each one shows as a bullet point.

Writing a quotation or invoice

1. Click New quotation or New invoice.
2. Bill to: type the client's email. If they are already one of your customers, pick them from the list and their name and phone fill in. Name is the only required field; the email is needed to send it.
3. Lines: a description, quantity, price and tax rate for each line. The tax rate starts at your Settings rate; clear it for lines without tax. Add as many lines as you need.
4. Discount: a fixed amount or a percentage of the subtotal.
5. Totals update as you type. Save.

How tax is worked out: tax is added on top of the price. A discount is shared across the lines in proportion to their amount, and each line is taxed on what is left of it. (Shop orders are different: their prices already include tax.)

Sending

On the document's page:

• Send by email emails the client a PDF and a link to view it online. Edit the message before sending. You can send it again at any time.
• Client link is the same link, to share on WhatsApp or anywhere else. Anyone with the link can open it, so share it only with the client.
• Download PDF gives you the file to send yourself.

Quotations: getting an answer

• The client opens the link and clicks Accept quotation or Decline, with an optional message. The quotation shows Accepted or Declined, and you get an email (sent to the order notification addresses in Settings -> Email).
• A red bubble on Quotations in the sidebar (Sales) counts answers you haven't opened yet, and those quotations are marked New answer in the list. Opening one clears it.
• If they answer by phone or in person, use Record the answer on the quotation's page.
• A quotation past its valid-until date shows Expired, and the client can no longer answer it online. Edit the date to reopen it.
• Convert to invoice creates a draft invoice with the same client, lines and discount. The quotation then shows Invoiced and links to it.

Invoices: numbers, payments and voiding

• A new invoice is a draft without a number. It gets the next number when you send it or click Mark as sent. Drafts never use up numbers, so deleting one leaves no gap.
• Once an invoice has a number it can't be deleted, only voided. It keeps its number, marked void.
• Record payment when money arrives: amount, date, method and a reference. Part-payments show Partly paid with the balance due; when the balance reaches zero the invoice shows Paid. Remove a payment recorded by mistake from the same list.
• An invoice with payments can't be edited or voided. Remove the payments first, or use Duplicate to start a corrected copy.
• An invoice still unpaid after its due date shows Overdue. The Invoices list shows what is outstanding and how many invoices are overdue.

Clients paying online

When an invoice is sent and has a balance due, the client's link shows Pay now. They pay the full balance with any payment method you have set up in Settings -> Payment gateways (card, PayPal, Safepay, bank transfer...).

• Accepted payment methods on the invoice form picks which of those this client can use (say, bank transfer only for a large invoice). All are ticked to start with; keep at least one. The invoice page shows the choice under Payments. If every method you ticked is switched off later, Pay now disappears.

• When the payment goes through, it is recorded on the invoice by itself (method "Online payment", the gateway's reference), and the invoice turns Paid. The client lands back on their invoice.

• It also shows in Sales -> Sales as "Invoice INV-...", with the usual new-order email and red bubble.

• Bank transfer: the client gets your bank details and can upload a receipt. Check your bank, then click Mark as paid on that row in Sales; the invoice is updated then.

• Refunding that sale in Sales takes the payment back off the invoice.

• Pay now only appears for invoices in your shop's currency (Settings -> Currencies & timezones), because that is the currency the gateways charge in. For an invoice in another currency, put your payment details in the notes.

Finding things

Both lists can be searched by number, client name, company, email or subject, and filtered by status.