Invoices

An invoice is the bill you send a client, with a link they can use to pay online. Create one from an accepted estimate or start from scratch. In the Back Office , open Invoicing > Invoices.

Find an invoice

The summary bar shows a count for Draft, Sent, Paid, Overdue, and Partial invoices, plus your Outstanding balance. Select a count, or pick a status from All Statuses, to show only those invoices. Type in the search box to find an invoice by subject or customer name. The search narrows the page of results you are on.

The table shows each invoice’s number, Subject, Customer, Date, Due, Total, and Status. A draft invoice has a trash icon to delete it. Select a row to open the invoice.

Create an invoice

From an estimate

Open an accepted estimate and select Convert to Invoice. The new invoice copies the estimate’s customer, contacts, items, discount, shipping, terms, and tax-exempt setting. See Convert to an invoice.

Tax on the new invoice is recalculated with your current tax rates and product tax settings. Its total can differ from the estimate if either changed.

From scratch

Select New Invoice. If Business Name or Reply-To Email isn’t set yet, you see Configure Invoice Settings First instead of the form.

The invoice form has the same sections as the estimate form: Subject, Project Name, Customer, Line Items, and Discount & Shipping, with the Tax Exempt box and the summary. See Create an estimate for those fields.

The Payment & Terms section adds:

Field	What it does
`Due Date`	When payment is due. A sent invoice past this date shows as `Overdue`.
`Terms`	Pre-filled from `Default Terms`, for example `Net 30`.
`Payment Instructions`	Pre-filled from `Default Payment Instructions`. Shown on the invoice.
`Notes (internal)`	For your team only.
`Enable Tipping`	Lets the customer add a tip when they pay online.

With Enable Tipping on, the customer’s payment page offers 10%, 15%, or 20% of the balance, or a custom amount. A tip is added on top of the balance they pay. Fees apply to the whole amount collected, tip included. See Invoicing pricing.

Tax exempt

Check Tax Exempt to charge no tax on the whole invoice, and add an optional Tax Exempt Reason of up to 60 characters. The invoice shows a Tax Exempt badge, or Tax Exempt: <reason>, and its totals show Tax as Exempt. Selflane stores the reason as entered and doesn’t check it.

Missing tax rate

If a line is taxable but no tax rate matches the customer’s location, the invoice form shows No tax rate is set up for <place>. The message says the invoice would be sent with no tax. The save button stays off until you do one of these:

Add a tax rate for that place in Settings. The Go to Settings link opens it in a new tab.
Mark the items non-taxable on their products.
Check Tax Exempt.

See How rates are applied.

New invoices are saved as a draft in your browser while you type, like new estimates.

Send an invoice

Open the invoice and select Send. Add a contact with an email address first. A confirmation lists the emails it goes to. If your business account isn’t active, Send shows “Sending is unavailable for this business” instead. Contact Selflane support.

When you send an invoice:

Each contact gets an email with the PDF attached and a link to view and pay.
The status changes to Sent.
Replies go to your Reply-To Email.

The Public Link section on the invoice shows the customer link with a Copy button.

Invoice statuses

Status	What it means
`Draft`	Not sent yet. You can edit or delete it.
`Sent`	Sent, with nothing paid yet.
`Partially Paid`	Some payments are in, and a balance is left.
`Paid`	The balance is fully paid.
`Overdue`	Sent or partially paid, and past the `Due Date`.
`Cancelled`	Voided. It can’t be edited or paid.

Invoice details

Open an invoice to see its status, the customer, every line, and the totals. The header has Send (for drafts and sent invoices), Refund (when a payment is still held), and PDF.

The totals show Subtotal, Discount, each tax, Shipping, and Total. Once money comes in, they also show Refunded, Paid, and Balance. Paid counts payments not yet refunded, and Balance is the total minus that amount. Refunding a payment adds its amount back to the balance.

The Payments list shows each payment’s amount, method, date, and reference. A refunded payment shows how much was refunded and how much is still held, or Fully refunded. The Refunds list shows each refund with its status: Pending, Succeeded, Failed, or Needs Review.

Online payment notices

The invoice shows a notice when customers can’t pay it online:

Online payments disabled. — online payments are off for your account. Customers don’t see the Pay Now button.
Invoice exceeds payment limit. — the invoice total is over your Max per Invoice limit. Customers can’t pay it online.
Test account. — customers can view the invoice but can’t pay online.

Contact Selflane support to enable online payments or raise a limit. See Online payment.

Administrative actions

The strip at the bottom of an open invoice has these actions:

Record Payment — log money you collected outside Selflane, such as a check, cash, or a transfer. It doesn’t charge the customer. See Record a payment.
Credit Note — issue a full credit note for the invoice.
Cancel — void the invoice.

Record Payment and Cancel show for sent, partially paid, and overdue invoices. Credit Note shows for sent, partially paid, and paid invoices.

The restaurant Back Office has no button to charge a customer’s card. Customers pay online from the invoice link. See Payments.

Credit notes

A credit note is a separate document that offsets all or part of an invoice. It is a record only. Issuing one doesn’t return money to the customer. To return money, use Refund.

There are two ways to issue one:

Full credit note — select Credit Note on the invoice and confirm Create a full credit note for this invoice? It copies every line from the invoice.
Refund credit note — check Create a credit note (credit memo) while refunding a payment. It has one line, “Refund of invoice #N payment,” for the refunded amount, with no tax. See Refund an invoice payment.

Each credit note gets its own number, PDF, and customer link, and links back to the original invoice. It appears in the invoice list with the subject “Credit Note for Invoice N.” When you open it, its title reads Credit Note #<number> and it shows a Credit Note badge. You can’t send, record a payment on, refund, or delete a credit note.

Cancel an invoice

Open the invoice and select Cancel.
Enter a reason, up to 500 characters. A reason is required.
Select Cancel Invoice.

You can’t cancel an invoice while money is still collected on it. The dialog shows how much is held and the cancel button stays off. Refund the payments first, or issue a credit note to keep the invoice on your books.

A draft invoice can’t be cancelled. Delete it instead.

Duplicate, edit, and delete

Duplicate — select Duplicate on any invoice to start a new one with the same customer, items, and settings. Use it for repeat billing.
Edit — select Edit on a draft invoice. Totals recalculate when you save.
Delete — only a draft invoice can be deleted. Cancel a sent invoice instead.

Customer view

The customer opens the invoice from the email link. No login is needed. They can view the lines, taxes, and balance, download the PDF, and pay online when online payments are available. See Payments.

PDF documents

Select PDF to download an invoice. The PDF includes:

Your business name, logo, and address from Invoice Settings.
The customer and contact details.
The invoice number, project, and due date.
Each line with its quantity and amount.
Subtotal, discount, each tax, shipping, and total.
A payment status of “Paid in Full” or “Due on DATE.”
Terms and payment instructions.

The PDF is also attached to every invoice email.

Owner-level access required.