We’re going to walk you through first creating an estimate and then turning it into an invoice. Creating an estimate versus an invoice is simply a matter of the status selected while creating the record.
1) From the Team Schedule page, open the Job Record for which you want to create an invoice. On the job record, hover over the green action button, and select ‘Invoice’ from the options. This method is shown below.
Alternate Method 1: Open the customer profile, hover over the green action button, and select ‘Invoice’ from the options.
Alternate Method 2: Open the ‘Estimates & Invoices’ option from the menu and click the green action button.
2) If created via a job record, the Opened Date, Customer, and Parent Service Record will be automatically populated and un-editable.
3) The status of the record defaults to ‘Invoice’ but can be changed to ‘Estimate’ to designate the record as an estimate.
4) The ‘Invoiced Date’ and ‘Due Date’ are optional but can be set upon creation.
Upon later selecting 'Prepare Invoice' the invoice will automatically mark an Invoiced Date and Due Date using today’s date and your default invoice settings for due date. They can always be modified as needed.
In this example, we will only fill in the ‘Due Date’ to indicate a due date for the customer to decide on whether to accept the estimate proposal.
5) Enter any relevant notes to appear on the estimate.
6) Click the edit button next to the tax rate to edit the tax rate applied to designated invoice line items.
The default tax rate from your administration settings are used by default, but it can be modified on a per invoice basis. Only line items that are designated to be taxed will have tax applied.
7) Click the green ‘Add Line Item’ button to begin adding invoice line items to your estimate.
8) Enter in the invoice item, unit price, quantity, taxation applied, and description to add the line item to the estimate.
The ‘Item’ field requires you to select from designated ‘Invoice Items’ in your item repository. If the Invoice Item does not yet exist in your Invoice Item repository, you must create that Invoice Item before adding it, which can be done on the fly by selecting ‘+ Create new Invoice Item’ from the Item drop-down.
You can also set up Bundles, for services and parts that are often grouped together on an estimate or invoice, to save you time. To add a bundle click Insert Bundle and click on the bundle you want to add. You'll see the bundled items reflected in the invoice items.
To set up a new bundle to easily add to your invoices, click on Administration in the main menu, and then click Estimates and Invoices. Then click Create New and add the line items that make up your bundle. Then, click Save.
9) Ensure you have added all the necessary line items to your invoice, they are taxed appropriately and the total is correct.
10) Once your estimate is ready, click ‘Save'.
11) Generate a PDF of the estimate for your customer
You can easily email any PDFs generated to your estimate/invoice record to customers or save for reference later, including PDFs generated for different statuses.
If using your smartphone on iOS or Android, you can directly open an email with the PDF automatically addressed to your customer. You can also accept customer signatures on your PDFs using your smartphone.
Once the estimate PDF has been created, click Email to Customer to send it directly to them or you can save it to your computer to email later.
12) Once your customer has accepted your estimate and you wish to convert it to an invoice, click the ‘Convert to Invoice’ button
Your estimate will automatically change to ‘Invoice Draft’ status where you can further modify the invoice if necessary before invoicing the customer. The ‘Due Date’ will automatically clear out as it prepares for a new ‘Due Date’ for the invoice.
13) You can then prepare the invoice as a PDF and save it to your computer or send it directly to the customer
The invoice will change to ‘Invoiced’ status and the ‘Invoiced Date’ and ‘Due Date’ will be automatically filled in based on today’s date and the default due date settings in your administration panel.
14) Once your customer has made payment, click ‘Mark Payment’ to record their payment.
You will enter the payment date, payment amount, payment method, and any notes, then click Save.
Payment records are required in order to mark the invoice as ‘Paid’ or ‘Partially Paid.’ If the sum of the payment records for the invoice is less than the invoice total amount, then the status will automatically change to ‘Partially Paid.’ If the sum of the payment records for the invoice is equal to or greater than the invoice total amount, then the status will automatically change to ‘Paid.’ This allows you to record partial payments made by the customer and automatically keep track of balances due for customers.
15) After the full payment record has been attached to the invoice, the invoice will move to ‘Paid’ status.
You can find the payment records under the ‘Payments’ tab on the invoice. Deleting or modifying the payment records can change the invoice status.
If the invoice is moved back to a previous status or marked void, the payment records will be removed automatically.
Your invoice is still fully editable, PDFs can continue to be generated, and payments can still be recorded or modified.
Congratulations, you've just created a new estimate, converted it to an invoice and accepted payment! Please reach out if you need any help with creating estimates or invoices: support@fieldpulse.com