AR Invoices

AR Invoices (Accounts Receivable invoices) are the bills you send to your customers for the work your business has done. This guide walks a first-time user through the AR Invoices screen, how to create an invoice from start to finish, and what happens to an invoice as it moves from a rough draft to a paid bill.

Where to find AR Invoices

From the left sidebar, choose Finance. The Finance area opens on the AR Invoices tab. (The other tabs along the top — Payments, Cash & Credit, General Ledger — are separate finance tools.)

What you see on this screen

Click any invoice number, or single-click a row, to open that invoice. Click the small arrow at the start of a row to expand it and preview its line items without leaving the list.

Where invoices come from — two paths

Depending on how the work is billed, an invoice is either created by you or generated for you:

• Contract work — you create the invoice yourself. For contract and progress billing, you build the invoice by hand with Create Invoice, as described in the next section.

• Per-occurrence and time & materials work — the task creates the invoice for you. When a task billed per occurrence or T&M is finished and its billing has been approved, move the task to Ready to Invoice (a workflow state on the task). Include GO then generates a draft AR invoice from the task automatically and marks the task Invoiced. That draft appears here in the AR Invoices list, where it goes through the exact same Approve → Post → Send lifecycle described below — you never need to build it by hand.

• Deposits and credits — raised from their own dialogs. A deposit invoice bills a customer up front (New Deposit Invoice in the top right), and a credit memo gives money back on an invoice you have already posted (Add Credit Memo on the right-click menu). Both appear in this same list and follow the same Approve → Post lifecycle.

A task can't be marked Ready to Invoice until its billing has been approved — if it hasn't, the workflow blocks the move and tells you why. See Tasks for task billing states.

Creating your first invoice

Click Create Invoice in the top-right corner. The invoice form opens.

Step 1 — Choose the customer and project

• Account (required) — the customer you are billing. Start typing to search your accounts and pick one. If the account is tax-exempt, a Tax Exempt badge appears and the tax fields are turned off automatically.

• Project (required) — the project this invoice is for. You must pick the account first; the project list then shows only that customer's projects. Choosing a project can pre-fill the tax rate from the project's settings.

Step 2 — Set the dates, terms, and tax

• Invoice Date (required) — defaults to today. This is the date the invoice is issued.

• Payment Terms — for example Net 30. The customer's default terms fill in automatically when you choose the account.

• Due Date — calculated for you from the invoice date and the payment terms (Net 30 = 30 days later). You can override it by hand if needed.

• Tax Rate (%) — the sales-tax percentage to apply. Leave it blank for no tax. (Hidden when the customer is tax-exempt.)

Step 3 — Add line items

Line items are the things you are charging for. Click Add Item to add a blank row, or Add Resource to pull an item in from your resource catalog (its price fills in for you).

For each line, fill in:

• Description — what the charge is for.

• Type — the kind of line item.

• Revenue Account — the income account the charge is booked to (used when the invoice is posted to your General Ledger).

• Completed — the date the work was finished, if you track it.

• Qty and Unit Price — the quantity and price each. The Total for the line is calculated automatically.

The running Subtotal, Tax, and Total appear below the table as you type. To reorder lines, drag a row by the handle on its left. To remove a line, right-click it and choose Delete. Click a line to open its Line Item Notes in the panel on the right.

Every line needs a description and a unit price greater than zero before the invoice can be saved.

Step 4 — Add notes and attachments (optional)

• Notes — use the Client tab for notes the customer will see on the invoice, and the Internal tab for private notes only your team sees.

• Attachments — drag in supporting files (such as a signed work order or photos) to send along with the invoice.

Step 5 — Save the draft

Click Create Draft. Your invoice is saved as a Draft — nothing has been sent to the customer and nothing has hit your accounting yet. You can reopen a draft any time to keep editing it.

After it's created: once an invoice exists you'll see two more tabs at the top of the form — Recipients (who the invoice gets emailed to — pulled from the account's contacts, with billing contacts marked) and History (a timeline of everything that has happened to the invoice).

Billing a deposit up front

Sometimes you need money from the customer before the work starts — a mobilization deposit, a down payment, a retainer. That is what a deposit invoice is for. Click New Deposit Invoice (the bank icon, next to Create Invoice).

A deposit invoice is deliberately simpler than a normal invoice: there are no line items to build, just an amount. The money is booked to Client Deposits rather than to revenue — you have not earned it yet, you are holding it. Once the deposit invoice has been approved, posted, and paid, that balance becomes credit you can apply to any of this customer’s invoices, not just the project it was raised against.

Fill in:

• Account (required) — the customer paying the deposit. Start typing to search.

• Project (required) — the project the deposit relates to. Pick the account first; the project list then narrows to that customer.

• Deposit Amount (required) — how much you are asking for. It must be greater than zero.

• Invoice Date — defaults to today.

• Payment Terms — Due on Receipt, Net 15, Net 30 (the default), Net 45, Net 60, or Net 90.

• Description — a short label for the charge, such as Mobilization deposit.

• Notes to Client — anything you want shown on the deposit invoice itself.

Click Create Deposit Invoice. It lands in the AR Invoices list as a draft, and from there it follows the same Approve → Post → Send path as any other invoice.

A deposit only becomes usable credit once it has been approved, posted, and paid. Until then it is simply an invoice you have issued.

What happens after the draft — the invoice lifecycle

An invoice moves through a series of stages. You move it along by right-clicking the invoice in the list and choosing an action. The menu only enables the actions that are valid for the invoice's current stage, so you can't skip a step by mistake. Depending on how your invoice workflow is configured, individual fields can also lock as an invoice advances — locked fields show a lock indicator and a banner in the edit form explains which state locked them.

The actions on the right-click menu

• Edit — change the invoice (Draft invoices only).

• Approve / Return to Draft — sign a draft off, or send an approved invoice back for more edits.

• Post to GL / Unpost — record the invoice in your General Ledger, or reverse those entries if you posted it by mistake (you'll be asked for a reason).

• Send to Client — email the invoice or share it through the customer portal. The list shows a count of how many times an invoice has been sent. Once an invoice is Partially Paid or Paid it is no longer offered — money has already changed hands, so there is nothing left to bill for.

• Apply Payment — record money received against the invoice, or apply a deposit or credit the customer already has. The status updates to Partially Paid or Paid automatically. Offered on Posted, Sent, and Partially Paid invoices — a fully Paid invoice has nothing left to pay.

• Add Credit Memo — give money back on an invoice you have already posted. Only available on posted invoices that have not been voided.

• View Payment History — see every payment recorded on the invoice, and reverse one if it was applied in error.

• Void — cancel an invoice that should not have been issued (you'll be asked for a reason). A Paid or Archived invoice can't be voided.

• Archive — tidy a fully-paid invoice out of your active list.

• Duplicate — copy an existing invoice into a fresh draft — handy for recurring or near-identical bills.

• Reports — open the invoice reports for the invoices you're currently viewing.

Working with several invoices at once: tick the checkboxes on multiple rows, then right-click. Actions like Approve, Return to Draft, Post to GL, Unpost, Archive, and Send to Client will apply to every eligible invoice in your selection and skip the ones that aren't ready (the confirmation shows how many are eligible and how many will be skipped). There's also Add Line Item — it adds one extra line (a service fee, discount, credit, adjustment, or miscellaneous charge, as a fixed amount or a percentage of each invoice's subtotal) to every selected eligible invoice at once. Handy for applying a fuel surcharge or late fee across a whole batch.

Managing an invoice after it's created

Once a draft is approved, a handful of actions carry the invoice the rest of the way — into your accounting, out to the customer, and through to payment. Here's what each one does.

Post to GL — recording the invoice in your accounting

Right-click an Approved invoice and choose Post to GL. This is a single click — there's no form to fill in — but it's the moment the invoice becomes a real entry in your General Ledger. Behind the scenes the system writes a balanced accounting entry for you:

• It debits Accounts Receivable for the full invoice total (the money the customer now owes you).

• It credits Revenue for each line item (the income you've earned), grouped by the revenue account on each line.

• If the invoice has sales tax, it credits Sales Tax for that amount.

If the invoice didn't have a number yet, posting assigns the next invoice number. After posting, the GL dot on the invoice row turns green and the status moves to Posted.

Posting needs an Accounts Receivable account and a revenue account to be set up. If one is missing, the system stops and tells you — your invoice stays a safe draft until it's sorted out. Posted by mistake? Use Unpost (you'll enter a reason) to reverse the accounting entries.

Send to Client — delivering the invoice

Once an invoice is Posted, right-click it and choose Send to Client.

• Report Template — choose which invoice layout to attach as the PDF the customer receives.

• Delivery Method — pick how it goes out:

  • Send to Client Portal — posts the invoice to the customer's online portal and emails them a notification. Only available when the account has portal access turned on.

  • Send via Email — emails the invoice directly. The recipient list is pre-filled from the account's billing contacts; you can add or remove email addresses, and edit the subject and message.

Click Send. The invoice moves to Sent, and the Delivery column on the list shows how it was delivered and how many times it has been sent.

Apply Payment — recording money received

When a customer pays, right-click the invoice and choose Apply Payment. The dialog shows the invoice's outstanding balance at the top.

There are two ways to settle that balance, chosen by the Apply Existing Deposit or Credit switch near the top of the dialog: record new money coming in, or draw on credit the customer already has.

Recording new money (the switch off)

• Payment Method — Check, ACH / EFT, Credit Card, or Wire Transfer. Choosing a method reveals the matching reference field (check number, ACH batch or trace number, wire confirmation).

• Amount — how much was received. If it is less than the balance, the dialog flags it as a partial payment and shows what is left; if it is more, it warns you how far over you are.

• Payment Date and Notes — when it was received and any details worth keeping.

• Deposit To — which of your bank accounts the money lands in. If you have not set any up, your default AR cash account is used.

Applying a deposit or credit (the switch on)

Turn on Apply Existing Deposit or Credit and Include GO lists everything this customer has on account — deposits they have already paid and credit memos you have raised. Each row is tagged so you can tell them apart at a glance: a Deposit badge or a Credit Invoice badge, along with its date, project, and how much of it is still available.

Tick the ones you want to use. Include GO fills in an amount for you — as much of the outstanding balance as that credit can cover — and you can type a smaller figure if you would rather keep some in reserve. A Total Credit Applied line keeps a running total, and:

• You cannot apply more than a credit actually has left — the row is marked Over available and Apply stays switched off.

• You cannot apply more than the invoice owes — the dialog tells you how far over the balance you are and blocks it.

• Applying less than the full balance is fine; the dialog shows how much will still be outstanding afterwards.

• A credit or deposit that is not usable yet (one that has not been approved, posted, and paid) is shown greyed out, with the reason why and what it will be worth once it is available.

If the customer has nothing on account, the dialog says so and points you to New Deposit Invoice or Add Credit Memo.

Click Apply to record it. The invoice’s status updates on its own — to Partially Paid if some balance remains, or Paid once it is settled in full.

When applying one payment across several invoices at once, they must all belong to the same customer — the dialog will warn you if your selection mixes accounts. Note that a deposit or credit is applied to one invoice at a time: if you have several selected, the dialog tells you which one the credit will go to.

Add Credit Memo — giving money back

If you over-billed a customer, or agreed to knock something off after the invoice had already gone to accounting, you do not edit the invoice — a posted invoice is a matter of record. Instead you raise a credit memo against it. Right-click the invoice and choose Add Credit Memo. It is available on invoices that have been posted and have not been voided.

The dialog shows which invoice you are crediting and its total, then asks for:

• Credit Amount (required) — how much to give back. You cannot credit more than the invoice is worth; go over and the dialog tells you by how much and will not let you continue. Crediting part of an invoice is perfectly normal.

• Credit Date — defaults to today.

• Reason (required) — why the credit is being given, for example Over-billed maintenance visits. This appears on the credit memo itself and becomes its line description, so write it for the customer.

• Internal Notes — anything your team should know that the customer should not see.

Click Create Credit Memo. Like a deposit, it arrives as a draft and needs to be approved and posted before the credit can be used. Once posted, the credit can be applied to any of that customer’s open invoices through Apply Payment — not only the invoice it was raised against.

Credit memo or Void? Use a credit memo when the invoice was right to send but the amount needs reducing. Use Void when the invoice should never have been issued at all.

Retainage — money held back until the end

On contract work, a customer may hold back a percentage of each invoice (retainage) until the job is done. Invoice line items can carry a retainage type, and the amount held accumulates on the project. When it's time to bill for the held money, the release is started from the project's Billing tab — you enter the release amount (up to what's held) and it comes through as a retainage release entry to invoice. See Projects for the Billing tab walkthrough.

View Payment History — seeing what's been paid

Right-click an invoice and choose View Payment History to see every payment recorded against it. The header shows the invoice Total, amount Paid, and remaining Balance, and the table lists each payment's date, method, reference number, status, notes, and amount. If you opened it for several invoices, you’ll see each invoice’s payments and a combined total at the bottom. It answers "has this been paid, and how?" at a glance — and if a payment was recorded in error, it is also where you undo it.

Reverse Payment — undoing a payment

Payments get recorded against the wrong invoice, or a customer’s cheque bounces. When that happens, open View Payment History and look at the row for the payment concerned — each applied or posted payment has a Reverse button at the end of its row.

Click it and you are asked for a Reason (required) — for example applied to the wrong invoice. The dialog confirms the amount and the invoice before you commit.

When you confirm:

• The original payment stays on record — nothing is deleted or quietly rewritten. A matching, opposite entry is posted to your General Ledger to cancel it out, so your accounting tells the whole story.

• The invoice’s balance is restored and its status moves back accordingly.

• Because the invoice is owed again, Send to Client and Apply Payment become available once more — so you can chase the balance or record the correct payment.

• The reversal and your reason are kept in the invoice’s history.

Reversing a payment is a permissioned action — if you do not see the Reverse button, your role does not include it. Ask an administrator.

Void — cancelling an invoice

If an invoice should never have been issued, right-click it and choose Void.

You'll pick a Reason (required) and can add notes. Voiding is deliberate and can't be undone, so the dialog says so plainly. When you confirm:

• If the invoice was already posted, its accounting entries are automatically reversed — so your General Ledger stays correct.

• The balance is set to zero and the invoice moves to Void.

• The void, and your reason, are recorded in the invoice's history.

A Paid or Archived invoice can't be voided. Use Void for billing mistakes; use Archive to simply tidy a finished, fully-paid invoice out of your active list.

Tips for getting started

• Drafts are safe. Nothing is sent and nothing hits your accounting until you Post and Send — so create freely and tidy up before approving.

• Let the dates do the work. Pick the account and the payment terms, and the due date calculates itself.

• Use Duplicate for repeat billing instead of rebuilding similar invoices from scratch.

• Check the summary cards at the top to keep an eye on what's Outstanding and Overdue at a glance.

• Tax-exempt customers are handled for you — the tax fields switch off automatically when you choose one.

• Check for credit before chasing a balance. Turn on Apply Existing Deposit or Credit in the Apply Payment dialog to see whether the customer already has a deposit or credit memo sitting on account.

• Reverse, don’t re-key. If a payment went on the wrong invoice, reverse it from Payment History rather than voiding the invoice — the trail stays clean and your ledger stays balanced.

Common questions

Why can't I edit an invoice? Only Draft invoices are fully editable. Once an invoice is Approved or beyond, use the right-click actions to manage it. To edit again, choose Return to Draft from an Approved invoice.

I posted an invoice by accident — can I undo it? Yes. Right-click and choose Unpost; you'll enter a reason and the General Ledger entries are reversed.

What's the difference between Void and Archive? Void cancels an invoice that should never have been billed. Archive simply removes a fully-paid invoice from your active list to keep things tidy.

An invoice appeared that nobody created — where did it come from? A task billed per occurrence or time & materials generates its own draft invoice when the task is moved to Ready to Invoice. Check the invoice's Project and line items — they'll match the task that produced it.

How do I record a customer's payment? Right-click the invoice and choose Apply Payment. The status moves to Partially Paid or Paid on its own as the balance comes down.

I applied a payment to the wrong invoice — how do I fix it? Open View Payment History on that invoice and click Reverse on the payment’s row. You’ll give a reason, the balance comes back, and you can then apply the payment where it belongs.

How do I use a deposit the customer has already paid? Right-click the invoice, choose Apply Payment, and turn on Apply Existing Deposit or Credit. Pick the deposit or credit memo you want to use and how much of it to apply.

Why is Send to Client greyed out? An invoice that is already Partially Paid or Paid can’t be sent — it has been billed and money has come in. If a payment was recorded by mistake, reverse it from Payment History and the option comes back.

What’s the difference between a deposit invoice and a credit memo? A deposit invoice collects money up front, before the work is done. A credit memo gives money back on an invoice you have already posted. Once approved and posted, both become credit you can apply to that customer’s invoices.

Related topics

• Projects — invoices are billed against a project.

• Tasks — per-occurrence and T&M tasks generate their invoices from the Ready to Invoice workflow state.

• Accounts — your customers and their contacts and payment terms.

• Cash & Credit Manager — where posted invoices appear in your ledger.

• GL Entries & Transactions — the journal entries that posting, payment, and voiding create.