Creating and sending an invoice - Pacten Guides
Everything you send a customer about money is a document, and they all live together under Finance → Invoices & docs. An invoice is one of six types, which is worth knowing before you raise the wrong one.
THE SIX TYPES
Pick the one that matches your intent
They are not interchangeable.
- Invoice — a request for payment for work. The only one that creates a debt.
- Quote — a priced estimate for the customer to approve. It commits nobody.
- Deposit request — takes money up front, before the work.
- Receipt — confirms a payment already received.
- Payment reminder — nudges an invoice that is already overdue. It does not create a second debt.
- Statement — a period summary of everything charged, for a customer who wants the whole picture rather than one document.
Watch out
A reminder is not another invoice. Raising a second invoice to chase the first is the most common and most expensive mistake here — the customer now appears to owe twice, and both figures flow into your aging and your reports.
BUILDING IT
Lines, discounts and totals
Lines can come from the catalog or be typed.
1
Choose the customer
Or start from their account, which fills this in and attaches the history.
2
Add the lines
Pull them from the finance catalog so the description and price are consistent with everything else you send, or type a one-off line where the work was genuinely one-off.
3
Apply a discount if there is one
Either a percentage or a flat amount. It applies to the document rather than being buried inside a line, so the customer can see what they were given.
4
Save it as a draft, or issue it
These are genuinely different — see below.
THE STATUSES
Where a document can be
Draft is not a claim on anybody.
- Draft — being written. It is not owed, it is not counted, and the customer knows nothing about it.
- Sent — issued to the customer. This is the point at which it becomes a real receivable.
- Part paid — some money has come in against it, but not all of it.
- Paid — settled in full.
- Overdue — past its due date and still outstanding.
- Void — cancelled. The document stays visible rather than vanishing, so the record of what was raised and withdrawn survives.
Tip
Void rather than delete. A deleted invoice takes its number and its history with it, and a gap in an invoice sequence is exactly what an auditor asks about. A void one answers the question by itself.
SENDING
Getting it to the customer
And what it looks like when it arrives.
Sending emails the document to the customer with your letterhead on it — your legal name, address, registration and tax details, and your logo. Where you invoice under more than one entity, the document carries that entity’s letterhead rather than the workspace’s.
The document also explains how to pay, using the payment methods your workspace has set up. If none are configured, it will still send and still be a valid claim — it simply will not tell the customer where to send the money.
When they pay
Matching money to what it settles.