--- title: Invoices and finance description: Raise, issue and settle invoices, keep your bank details and terms, and watch subscriptions, expenses, payment requests and margin. --- Money lives under :icon[Money] **Finance** in the rail (`/admin/costs`), in five tabs: **Invoices**, **Expenses**, **Subscriptions**, **Payment requests** and **Reports**. ## Create a draft On the Invoices tab press **New invoice**, pick the **Project** and the **Currency** (prefilled from the project's agreed fee) and press **Create draft**. A draft has no number and is invisible to the client until issued, so an abandoned draft leaves no gap. ## Build the invoice The record has tabs: **Status**, **Invoice**, **Payments** (once issued) and **Chat**. The **Invoice** tab opens with the **From**, **Bill to** and **Payment** blocks, marked **Preview** on a draft and frozen at issue. **Lines** is a grid: click a cell to edit it, or press **New line**. A line has a **Description**, **Qty** and **Unit price**. **Type** is **Free text** or one of the project's deliverables. **Agreement line**, shown when the project has an accepted proposal, records which agreed line the charge answers to. **Bill time** adds one line for the unbilled hours in a range: set **From**, **To (inclusive)** and an **Hourly rate**, then press **Add time line**. Each entry is rounded up to the next 15 minutes and marked billed. Under **VAT**, tick **Charge VAT on this invoice** and type the **Rate (%)**. VAT is never inferred. The **VAT note** prints as typed, for example "No VAT charged." ## Issue it On the **Status** tab press **Issue invoice**, then **Issue it**. Issuing cannot be undone: it allocates the next number, sets the issued date to today and the due date to today plus your payment terms, freezes the document, writes the PDF and moves the status to **Sent**, which the client can see. A mistake is cancelled and reissued; the cancelled one keeps its number. ## See whether they opened it An issued invoice shows **Never opened**, or the visits and when, beside its status on the record, in the **Client opened** column on **Invoices**, and on its row under **Waiting on them** on Home. A visit is one browser session of the client reading the invoice signed in. The studio's own looks never count, and it never says which person at the client. ## Move the status | Status | Meaning | | --- | --- | | Draft | Being built. No number. | | Sent | Issued and awaiting payment. | | Paid | Settled, stamped with today's date. | | Unpaid | Never answered by the client. | | Cancelled | Withdrawn; keeps its number. | **Overdue** is not a status: a Sent invoice past its due date is tagged overdue wherever it appears. After issue the Status tab shows the **Issued**, **Due** and **Paid** dates and a **Move to** row with a button per status. On an overdue invoice whose billing contact has an email, **Send reminder** on the Status tab (or in the row menu on **Invoices**) emails them a reminder with the PDF attached, after a confirm naming who and how much. It is only ever sent by hand, up to three a day, and **Last reminded** shows when the last one went. ## Record a payment On the **Payments** tab press **Record payment** and enter the **Amount** (prefilled with what is outstanding), **Date received**, **Method** and an optional **Reference**. **Invoice total**, **Recorded** and **Outstanding** are summed from the rows. Recording never changes the status: once the payments reach the total, a notice reads **Fully covered** (or **Overpaid**) and offers **Mark paid**. ## Read the document Press **Document** to open the invoice as the client sees it (`/invoices/`): the dates and total, **From** and **To**, the lines and totals, and a **Payment** section listing **Account name**, **Sort code**, **Account number**, **IBAN**, **BIC / SWIFT**, **Payment reference** (the invoice number), **Terms** such as "14 days from issue, due 3 Oct 2026" and your payment note, each with a copy button. ![An issued invoice as the client sees it: dates and total, From and To, the lines, the totals and the Payment details.](/docs-assets/invoice-document.png) An overdue invoice opens with a band reading **N days overdue**; a paid one with **Paid** and "Received on ... Thank you." A paid or cancelled invoice prints no bank details. **PDF** downloads the document written at issue, unchanged since. Clients see it from **Your invoices** (`/invoices`); drafts never appear there. ![An overdue invoice opens with a red band reading 37 days overdue and an Overdue status chip.](/docs-assets/invoice-overdue.png) ## Set your payment details Open **Studio settings, Business details** (`/admin/settings/business`). The **Payment** section holds **Account name**, **Sort code**, **Account number**, **IBAN**, **BIC / SWIFT**, **Payment terms (days)** and **Payment note**. Terms set the due date at issue; blank means 30 days. Every value is frozen onto each invoice at issue. ## Track subscriptions and burn The **Subscriptions** tab is the register of recurring costs. Press **New cost** and fill the row: **Cost**, **Vendor**, **Category**, **Amount**, **Currency**, **Billing** (monthly to annually), **Renews**, **Started** and **Ends**. A cost renewing within 14 days shows **Soon**. To cancel one, use **End it today** in its row menu. **Monthly burn** on the Reports tab totals live costs per currency. ## File expenses and read the ledger The **Expenses** tab lists what was spent: **Description**, **Charged to**, **Vendor**, **Amount**, **Currency**, **Date**, **Category** and **Rebilled**. Press **New expense** to add one; a project's **Finance, Expenses** pane has its own form with a **Rebill to the client** tick. Rebilled expenses go back out on an invoice; absorbed ones come off the margin. The project's **Finance, Ledger** pane sets money against the agreement: **Against the agreement** (with a **Bill** button per line), **Unallocated**, **Off the agreement** and **Done, not billed**. ## Answer payment requests A contractor's rail has :icon[HandCoins] **Request payment** (`/payments`), where they log their invoice against a confirmed booking: **Amount**, **Your invoice number** and **What it covers**. Requests land on the **Payment requests** tab under **Waiting on you**. Press **Approve**, **Decline** with a reason, or **Mark paid**. ## Read the reports The **Reports** tab shows time, cost and margin by project for a date range: **Project**, **Basis**, **Hours**, **Cost**, **Quoted**, **Margin** and **Margin %**, then totals by currency, charts, **Monthly burn** and **Forecast**. The `report` (action `margin`) tool gives an agent the same table. ## In the app - [/admin/costs](/admin/costs): Finance - [/admin/invoices](/admin/invoices): the invoices register; `/admin/invoices/` is one invoice - [/invoices](/invoices): the client's list; `/invoices/` is the document - [/admin/settings/business](/admin/settings/business): bank details and payment terms - [/payments](/payments): a contractor's payment requests