Send and configure invoices

Send an invoice

Open an invoice and choose Send. A panel opens beside the invoice with the email it will send:

• To starts with the contact's primary address, or with the addresses the invoice was last sent to. Remove any of them, or type more, separated by commas. Contacts are suggested as you type. Addresses you add are not saved to the contact.
• Add Bcc, under To, adds addresses that get the same email without the To recipients seeing them.
• Send me a copy, ticked to start with, adds your own address to Bcc. You get the same email, so you have it and know it went out, and the invoice's Activity lists your address with the others.
• Subject and Message start with your team's wording, with the customer's name, the amount due and the due date already filled in. Change or delete any of it for this email.
• Send reminders if it is not paid emails the To addresses on your team's reminder schedule; see Payment reminders.

Send asks first, naming the addresses the email will go to; for a draft, it also says the invoice's details will become final. Everyone in To gets one email, so they can see each other's addresses. It has your message, the invoice number, the amount due, the due date and the PDF. When customers can pay by card, it also has a Pay online button; see Record invoice payments and refunds. Replies go to your account's email address.

Sending a draft issues it: its number, customer and business details, amounts and PDF become final, and the stored PDF is attached. An issued or paid invoice can be sent again with the same PDF. A void invoice cannot be sent.

The invoice's Activity shows each email, whom it went to, and whether the email service accepted it. That shows the message was accepted, not that it reached the inbox. Ask the recipient to check spam and the address before sending another copy.

Send yourself a test

Send test to me, in the Send panel, sends you the email exactly as the customer would get it, with "[Test]" before the subject. It goes to your account's email address and uses what is in the panel, so you can change the message and send another test. A draft stays a draft, and a test is not added to the invoice's Activity. You can send 10 tests in 10 minutes.

Payment reminders

A reminder is an email to an invoice's To addresses about what is still to be paid. It shows the current amount due, so a partly paid invoice is reminded of its balance, and it carries the PDF and the Pay online button.

• Reminders go out on the days of your team's Reminder schedule: on the due date, then 7 and 14 days after, unless you change it. An invoice due on receipt counts from its issue date.
• A reminder goes out from 9am in the time zone of the person who last sent the invoice, from them and with replies to them.
• They stop when the invoice is paid in full or voided. Reopening a void invoice starts them again.
• If a reminder day was missed, only the latest one goes out. No reminder is sent on a day the invoice was already emailed.

The invoice page shows Reminders with when the next one goes out. Change it to Off to stop them for that invoice, or back to On. Reminders go only to an invoice that has been emailed from Magpie. If a customer pays without the payment being recorded, reminders continue until you record it; the reminder message says to ignore it if the invoice has been paid.

Invoicing settings

Invoicing → Settings has four groups. Your details on the invoice has the logo and the business details: business name, business address, and tax ID or registration number. Open Logo, then Choose logo to pick a JPG or PNG of up to 5 MB from Your images or upload one; a copy is printed on new invoices. Remove logo issues new invoices without one. Issued invoices keep the logo they were issued with. Payments has Card payments, which controls whether customers can pay by card; see Record invoice payments and refunds. Emails to customers controls what Send starts with:

• Invoice message is the message new emails start with.
• Payment reminders in Send sets whether the reminders box starts ticked.
• Reminder schedule chooses the days reminders go out, from 7 days before the due date to 30 days after, and the reminder message. With no days chosen, no reminders are sent.

Messages can use fill-ins such as {first name}, {amount due} and {due date}, which are replaced with each invoice's details; the settings pages list them all. An empty message box goes back to Magpie's wording.

New invoice defaults controls numbering, currency, tax rates, payment terms, a default hourly rate for new Time Tracking entries, and terms text. Numbering has a prefix, the next number and zero padding, and shows what the next invoice number will be. Currency, payment terms and terms text are copied into a new draft, and new items start with the tax rate chosen for new items; see Set up tax rates for invoices. The hourly rate applies to a new time entry when it has no project or Contact rate. The default payment terms can be zero for payment on receipt. A contact's own payment terms override the default when creating an invoice.

Business details and the draft's contents are saved with the invoice when it is issued. Changing settings does not change an issued invoice or its PDF.

Open a draft and choose Preview PDF to check its customer, business details, items, totals, notes, and terms. A draft preview uses the current invoice settings and contact details. Correct those details before issuing.

In the mobile app

In the mobile development app, editors can create or edit draft invoice content from native invoice screens, then choose Issue and send or Send invoice from native invoice detail. The send screen has the same To, Bcc, Send me a copy, subject, message and reminders as the website, lists the contact's saved addresses to add or remove, asks before sending, and has Send test to me, which can be sent again. An issued invoice with something left to pay shows Payment reminders with when the next one goes out and a switch to turn them on or off. The native invoice Settings screen shows current numbering, new-invoice defaults, business details and the invoice logo, with a separate editor for each group.

The native app can upload or remove the invoice logo from Invoice settings. It copies the selected account image into invoice storage so recipients do not need an authenticated image-library session. JPG and PNG files up to 5 MB are accepted.

A missing PDF

If the stored PDF of an issued invoice is missing or was changed, Magpie makes it again from the details saved with the invoice the next time the invoice or its PDF is opened, and adds PDF made again to the invoice Activity. The new PDF uses the current logo. An invoice issued before Magpie stored each PDF has no business or customer details saved, so its PDF takes the current business details and contact details, and they are saved with the invoice.

When the PDF cannot be made, the invoice page shows the reason under PDF and does not offer the PDF buttons. Reload the page to try again. If it still cannot be made, or emails repeatedly fail, Contact support.