Books' invoice module lets you bill clients, email a branded copy from your own address, and record payments straight into your ledger. It follows the cash-basis rule most small agencies use for taxes: the invoice does not affect income until you mark it paid.
The invoice lifecycle at a glance
An invoice moves through these states. The status pill on the invoice list matches this vocabulary:
Draft — you're building it. Nothing has been emailed. Editable, deletable, no ledger impact.
Sent — you emailed it. The client has the tokenized link.
Viewed — the client opened the link at least once. Status auto-updates on first open; a timestamp is logged.
Overdue — the due date has passed and the invoice isn't paid. This is a computed state; no manual action needed.
Paid — you marked it paid. Journal entry is posted to the deposit account you chose.
Canceled — voided. The client link stops working; the record stays for history but doesn't count anywhere.
Creating an invoice
Click New invoice from the Invoices page.
Pick the Client from the dropdown. Missing? Use Add New Contact inline — the payee gets saved to your Contacts list.
The client's email + address auto-fill into the invoice header. Any blank ones you can type in directly.
Add line items — description, category (chart-of-account), quantity, unit price. Line totals compute automatically.
Set the tax rate if any (single rate applied to the subtotal).
Pick issue date + terms (Due on receipt / Net 15/30/45/60/90) — Books calculates the due date from those.
Click Save as draft. You land on the invoice show page.
Editing after you've sent
Standard SMB accounting rule: you can edit an invoice at any pre-payment status — Draft, Sent, Viewed, or Overdue. Once a payment is applied, edits are locked; the correct move then is Cancel and re-issue.
When you edit an already-sent invoice, Books flashes a reminder to Resend so the client sees the current version. The invoice number stays the same; nothing is duplicated.
Sending — and the emailed copy
The Send panel on the invoice show page prefills the client's email, then emails a branded copy from [email protected]. If you set a billing email in Company Settings, that address becomes the Reply-To — client replies land in your inbox, not our unmonitored no-reply.
The emailed copy includes your logo, your company name, and a large View invoice button that opens the tokenized client link. The link is public (unauthenticated) — anyone with it can view + download the PDF. Cancel the invoice to invalidate the link.
Marking paid — this is when it hits your books
When money lands (check clears, ACH posts, cash in hand), open the invoice and click Mark paid. Books asks:
Paid on — the date the money hit
Deposit into — the bank/credit account that received it
Via — Check, Cash, ACH, or Other
Notes — check #, ref number, whatever helps you find it later
On save, Books auto-creates one manual inflow transaction into the deposit account you chose. The transaction is split into one line per invoice line, categorized to each line's chart-of-account. Tax gets pro-rated across the lines. Sum matches the invoice total exactly.
On the invoice
Status flips to Paid
Shows amount + date + method
Shows account it booked to
Link to the transaction
On your books
Manual inflow into the account
One line per invoice line
Categorized to line COAs
Appears in reports + reconciliation
Unpaid, refunded, or booked to the wrong account
Click Mark unpaid. Books reverses the journal entry cleanly (deletes the auto-created transaction and unlinks it), then reverts the invoice to its pre-paid state. Re-mark paid to book again to whichever account you actually meant. Every reversal is logged in Settings → Audit Log.
Canceling an invoice
If a client backs out or you sent by mistake, click Cancel invoice. The client link stops working (404), the invoice moves to Canceled, and it stops counting in totals. The record stays in your list under the Canceled filter for history. No ledger impact — cancel only works on unpaid invoices; if a payment was applied, mark it unpaid first.
The client's view
Every sent invoice gets a public URL like books.your-agency.com/i/{token}. Clients see a clean, branded page with your logo + company name up top, your address / phone / billing email, and the invoice itself with all line items, subtotal, tax, and total. A Download PDF button gives them a copy for their records. First open stamps the Viewed status and logs the timestamp.
Company settings that affect invoices
Logo — appears on the client view, the emailed copy, and the downloaded PDF
Company name — always displayed under the logo (and as a fallback if no logo)
Billing email — reply-to on outbound invoice emails + the "contact us" address on the client view
Business phone + address — shown in the invoice header
Starting invoice # — used only for your first invoice, useful when migrating from another system
Audit trail
Every mutation writes an entry to Settings → Audit Log under the Invoices module: created, updated, sent, viewed (by the client), paid, unpaid, canceled, deleted. Payment events preserve the amount, method, and deposit account so you can reconstruct exactly what happened to any invoice at any point.
Frequently asked
Does creating an invoice affect my income reports?
No. Cash-basis: the invoice affects nothing until you mark it paid. That's the moment the transaction is created + categorized.
Can Books auto-mark invoices paid when the money hits my bank?
Not today. Marking paid is a manual action — you record when a check clears, an ACH lands, or cash is in hand. The upside is Books stays honest about what has actually settled.
What if I sent to the wrong email?
Open the invoice, change the To field in the Resend invoice panel, and click Resend. The email goes out to the new address. The tokenized link is the same either way, so the original recipient (if they still have the email) can still open it. Cancel the invoice if you need the link dead.
Can I change the starting invoice number after we've sent a few?
You can, but Books ignores it — once you have any invoices, the next number is always MAX(existing) + 1 to prevent duplicates. The setting only anchors the first invoice on a fresh tenant (e.g. you're migrating from another system and want to continue from 4783).
Can I edit an invoice after it's been paid?
No — that would rewrite a booked transaction and break your ledger. Instead, Mark unpaid (which reverses the journal entry), edit, then mark paid again.
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