Invoicing

Invoices are built from unbilled time and from contracts. An invoice belongs to the client being billed, which is not always the client the work was done for: when one company brings another onto a project, the invoice follows the billing relationship rather than the project.

Invoices are admin-only. A client can be sent an invoice by email and can open it through a link without an account. The link in that email, and in any overdue reminder, keeps working until the invoice is paid or voided. A client who replies to the invoice email or a reminder has their reply filed into the invoice's chat, which also pauses its overdue reminders; when the company has an invoice email set, the reply reaches that inbox too.

An invoice has one of four statuses, set from the pill on its row in the invoices list or from the status on the invoice itself: Open, Sent, Paid and Voided. An open invoice also has a stage, which the pill shows in place of "Open": Draft (the default), Ready for review, Ready to send, or Hold until a date, which asks for the date when picked. A held invoice reads as Draft again once its date arrives; that is worked out when the invoice is read, so no job changes it. Every stage counts as not yet sent and can still be edited and take time, and sending an invoice moves it to Sent whatever its stage. The stage means nothing once the invoice is not open. The status cards above the list filter by status, and the Open card breaks its count down by stage ("3 draft, 1 for review, 2 ready, 1 on hold"), each part showing just those invoices. Partly paid, overpaid and overdue are not statuses; they are worked out from the payments and the due date.

Late fees are off unless an admin sets them in Settings, Company, Late fees: a rate per month and a number of days after the due date before it starts. Each invoice copies those terms when it is created, or when it is first sent if it has none yet, and prints them at the bottom, for example "Late payment: 1.5% per month on balances unpaid 30 days after the due date." Changing the company setting later never changes an invoice that already has terms. An admin can change or remove the terms on one invoice with the link under them while the invoice is unlocked.

On a sent invoice that is past its grace period, an admin sees the late fee so far above the payment history. It is simple interest on what is still unpaid (the invoice amount minus payments), counted by the day from the end of the grace period. Add to invoice puts it on the invoice as a Late fee line and adds it to the total; the count then starts again from that day. Waive records who waived it and when, and the invoice stops accruing a fee. An invoice with no due date is treated as due 30 days after its date. The client's link and the PDF show the terms and any late fee line, never the running fee.

Overdue reminders email the client about a sent invoice that is still unpaid at 7, 14 and 30 days past due, once each, on weekdays during working hours. They are off until an admin turns them on in Settings, Money, where the wording of each of the three emails can be edited. Paying the invoice in full stops them. A reply from the client pauses that invoice's reminders: an email reply to a reminder, which also lands in the invoice's chat, or a message the client writes in the invoice's chat. An admin can pause or resume one invoice's reminders from the REMINDERS line on the invoice, which also shows which reminder went out last, whether a reply paused it, and what is next. At 60 days the next step is a letter, which Projectous shows but does not send.

Marking an invoice Ready to send is the approval to send it. One admin sends the company's invoices, chosen in Settings, Money, Sending invoices (the first admin when nobody is chosen). When the sender marks an invoice ready, a "Send now?" window opens with the email written and editable. When anybody else marks it, the invoice waits on the sender, which puts it in their Planner. The email is a standard message with merge fields, or one Claude writes in the sender's voice: one wording a month for every client, or one per client per month. Claude writes a template with merge fields, never the amounts itself, and the standard message is sent if Claude cannot be reached. The voice comes from emails the sender pastes in or reads from their own connected mailbox's Sent folder (their own only), or else the invoice emails they sent through Projectous. The sender picks clients whose invoices send by themselves ten minutes after being marked ready; moving the invoice out of ready before then stops it. Those emails carry the view link and no PDF, because the PDF is drawn in the browser. A note left for the email when marking it ready is worked into the draft, holds the automatic send, and hands the invoice to the sender. The Send window on an invoice opens with the same draft.

How do I invoice tracked time?#

Billing a client for hours happens on Invoiceable, under Finances, for admins. It lists time not yet on an invoice, grouped so each contract type is billed its own way: hourly and at cost time by the hour, and fixed price, milestone and retainer work under its contract. At cost time is billed at the person's rate with the contract's markup added.

Tick the timers and choose from the bulk actions:

• Create Invoice makes a new invoice from them. The timers must all be for one client. If some have not been reviewed, you are asked to confirm first.
• Add to Invoice adds them to an invoice that has not been sent yet.
• Adjust Invoice Rate changes the client rate on the ticked timers.

An hour is billed at the timer's client rate, for its billed time: the invoice duration if one is set, otherwise the time worked. Non-billable timers add nothing. How billed time differs from worked time, with a worked example, is in Time tracking.

To invoice every client at once, press Create invoices for period on Invoices. It lists each client with billable time not yet on an invoice in the period, reviewed or not, and makes one invoice per client you keep ticked.

Once a timer is on an invoice it is read only and leaves Invoiceable. On an invoice that is still unlocked, the minus button beside a timer takes it off without deleting it; it goes back to Invoiceable and can be edited again.

Editing a timer's line on the invoice changes what the client is billed: the billed time, the client rate, the billable switch and the invoice notes. Only an admin can do it. It never changes the time the person worked or their pay, and it marks the timer reviewed.