Create and track invoices

An invoice belongs to Personal or the selected team and bills one of its contacts. Invoicing shows what is outstanding and overdue, and has All, Draft, Due, Overdue, Paid and Void tabs. Each invoice appears in one status only. Search by number or customer, or choose a contact; the tab counts and the outstanding totals then cover only the invoices that match.

Create a draft

Choose New invoice. An invoice needs a contact: if Personal or the team has none, the page offers Add contact first. Add contact under Bill to also keeps what you have entered and comes back to the draft with the new contact chosen.

A new draft starts with one item. Its due date comes from the contact's payment terms when set, and otherwise from the invoicing defaults. Changing the contact or issue date updates that date until you enter one yourself. Zero payment days, or an empty due date, means payment on receipt.

The contact, dates, currency, line items, each item's tax rate, discount, notes, and terms save together. Each item uses one of the team's tax rates or no tax; see Set up tax rates for invoices. The discount is taken off before tax. Quantities can have up to four decimal places. Move items with the arrows. Undo remove brings back a removed item until you leave the editor, and the totals update while you type. Magpie checks every field and works out the totals again on save. If a field is refused, what you entered stays in the editor with the reason beside the field.

Choose Create draft. To fill the form from a timesheet or quote instead, see Build an invoice by pasting JSON.

Add tracked time

Add unbilled time is shown to the team's admins. It lists your own completed, billable Time Tracking entries that have the selected contact, an hourly rate and a rate currency matching the invoice currency. Tick entries and choose Add selected time to make invoice items. Each entry becomes one item priced from its billed time and hourly rate, rounded to the currency's smallest unit. A project's billing rounding applies when the item is first added; with no project, exact time is used. The list shows recorded and billed time when they differ. The tracked entry keeps its original time, and changing project rounding later does not reprice an item already on a draft. An older entry with no rate currency needs one set in Time Tracking before it can be added.

Removing the item from a draft releases the entry for another invoice. Issuing the invoice marks the entry Invoiced. See Track time.

Add expenses

Add unbilled expenses lists your own reimbursable expenses that have the selected contact, are in the invoice currency, and are not drafts or on an expense report. Tick them and choose Add selected expenses. Each expense stays linked to the invoice and is marked billed when the invoice is issued. To list an expense here, mark it reimbursable and choose its contact on the expense's page; see Track expenses and receipts.

Issue an invoice

Saving creates a draft. Edit draft changes it, and Delete draft in the More menu deletes it; a deleted draft's number is not used again. Preview PDF shows the draft as the customer will get it.

Send emails the invoice and issues it; see Send and configure invoices. Issuing makes its number, customer and seller details, dates, items, amounts, notes, terms, and PDF final. An issued invoice cannot be edited or deleted: duplicate it to make a new draft, or void it. An invoice needs at least one described item and a total above zero before it can be issued.

Invoice states

• Draft: not yet issued, and can be changed.
• Due: issued with a balance to pay, before its due date.
• Overdue: issued with a balance to pay after its due date. The invoice page shows how many days overdue it is.
• Paid: payments reach the total.
• Void: issued, kept on record, with nothing to pay.

Record payment records full or partial payment; it does not charge a card. Customers can also pay online by card. See Record invoice payments and refunds. A paid invoice can still be sent again.

The More menu

The More menu beside the invoice's number has:

• Open in PDF Editor, which opens the invoice PDF in the PDF Editor.
• Duplicate, for any invoice: a new draft with the same contact, currency, items, discount, notes and terms, a new number and the current default dates.
• Make recurring, which issues and emails these lines every month, quarter or year; see Recurring invoices.
• Record refund; see Record invoice payments and refunds.
• Void invoice, for an issued invoice with no payments. It keeps the invoice and its PDF on record while stating that no payment is due, and stops its payment reminders. A void invoice cannot be sent.
• Reopen, which returns a void invoice to unpaid.

An invoice made from a Store quote shows the quote's number and links to it.

Plan limits

On the Free plan, up to 5 invoices can be created each month. Editing, sending again and recording payments are not limited. Invoices that Store makes for an order, and invoices a proposal makes, do not count.

In the mobile app

In the mobile development app, choose New from Invoices to create a draft, or choose Edit draft from an invoice's action menu. The native editor covers the contact, dates, currency, line items and their tax rates, discount, notes and terms; it does not add tracked time or expenses. Open an invoice and choose Share invoice PDF to share its current PDF. Editors can also record payments and refunds, void or reopen an invoice, duplicate an invoice, or delete a draft from the native invoice screen and its action menu.

If a draft cannot be saved or its totals remain wrong after reloading it, Contact support.