Getting started
From a new account to a sent invoice, in six steps. The first three are setup you do once. After that, an invoice is steps four to six.
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1. Tell it who you are
Open Settings and fill in your business name, email and address. This is what your client sees at the top of every invoice. You can also add a logo and an accent color, a default hourly rate, and how many days a client has to pay.
Then add the ways you take payment: PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, Apple Pay or your own Stripe payment link. Each one you fill in appears on your invoices and in the email that carries them.
2. Add a client
Under Clients, add a name and the email address invoices should go to. An address and notes are optional.
3. Have a record of the work
A draft is written from something you already keep. Any of these works:
- Notes. What you did, in your own words. Paste them on the Generate page or upload the file.
- A time-tracker export. The CSV file your tracker exports, pasted or uploaded on the same page. The hours it tracked are offered as your total, and entries marked not billable are left out.
- A git repository. Connect GitHub under Repos (see GitHub access), use the command line inside any git repo (see Command line), or paste a git log on the Generate page.
You can also skip this step and write the invoice by hand under Invoices.
4. Generate a draft
On Generate, choose where the work is recorded and the client, set the date range, and enter the total hours and your rate. You decide the hours; the draft divides them across the work in that range and describes each piece in plain language.
Style controls how lines are grouped: one line per day, or one per theme of work.
5. Review and edit
Nothing is sent until you say so. Change any description, date or number of hours, set a different rate on a single line, or add a deduction as a percentage or a fixed amount. You can also ask for changes in the chat beside the draft, for example “merge the two checkout lines” or “move an hour from Monday to Friday”.
Not everything is hours. Under Line items you can add an item or flat fee (a quantity at a price; leave the quantity at 1 for a flat fee) or an expense you are passing on at cost. Once an invoice has one of these, its columns read Qty and Price instead of Hours and Rate.
6. Send it
Send emails the invoice to your client as a PDF, with a copy to you. From then on the invoice is due, and becomes overdue after its due date. A reminder is one click, and so is marking it paid when the money arrives.